


Let It Start Tonight

by The_Girl_Who_Got_Tired_of_Waiting



Category: The Greatest Showman (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Angst, Drabble Collection, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Multi, One Shot Collection, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Shifter AU, TGSFanFicFeb2019, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-01
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-10-20 12:36:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 26,597
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17622503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Girl_Who_Got_Tired_of_Waiting/pseuds/The_Girl_Who_Got_Tired_of_Waiting
Summary: My place to put all of my contributions for The Other Side Discord's FanFicFeb challenge. All unconected, probably very short stories. Various pairings, characters and plots. Raiting is to be on the safe side but each chapter will be warned and rated individually.





	1. First Meeting

**Author's Note:**

> Today's Prompt: First Meeting  
> Pairing: Phillip/Phineas background pairing  
> Rating: Mostly Gen.  
> Warnings: Light angst, mentions of child abuse but nothing graphic.

When Phillip had told Phineas where he was going, the other man had been surprised to say the least. He'd blinked, and laughed not unkindly but with confused mild amusement. As though Phillip had suddenly expressed a wish to start wearing a dress on alternate Thursdays.

"Really?" he asked. "You want... huh..."

“Lots of people go.” Having talked himself around second and third doubts, Phillip didn't know if he could take Phineas' mockery. "It's not so very strange."

"It's not," Phineas had said quickly. "I'm just... surprised. I didn't know you were religious."

"I'm not."                                                                                

And Phillip isn't, not really. Which begs the question of why he is standing outside the city's largest church on Christmas Eve, with darkness behind him, and the faint, candlelight glow from the windows in front of him. 

The opening lines of the first hymn being sung drift out to Phillip. He's late. That was planned. He didn’t want to compete with the crush of people on the steps. It's always busy tonight. The last attempt of the year to appear virtuous for the wealthy elite. All the people Phillip once knew. It had been a long time since he had been seen by any of them. They would all be staring, pointing. No. Phillip didn't want that. 

Now, with organ music already playing to drown out his entrance, Phillip can creep inside like a thief and take a seat in the back-most row, almost entirely unseen. The elderly woman he sits beside offers him a wizened smile, which he does his best to return. 

Phillip thinks again on Phineas' earlier comment. Phillip is not religious. Nor is he unreligious. He has just never given it that much thought. He's not in the habit of praying. He's not sure if he believes in God and he knows that if He does exist in the form preached about from the pulpit and in the pages of the Bible, there will be nothing but utter damnation waiting for Phillip in eternity. Not least of all because of the man currently warming half of his bed at home. 

_"Do you want me to come with you?" Phineas had asked, looking far from sure but offering without hesitation._

_Phillip had chuckled, and gone on tiptoe, pulling Phineas low in order to kiss the taller man's forehead. "Save your sanity," he’d replied, affectionately. "You can barely sit through a long lunch without fidgeting. Midnight Mass might cause you to combust."_

Phillip cannot believe in a higher power which would damn him, or Phineas, just for loving each other. But now, surrounded by so many candles that they almost stave off the winter chill, Phillip cannot help but wonder if he might accept a different God. One who would know and understand just what he had created in Phillip. 

The familiarity of the service washes over Phillip. The routine of it comes back to him unprompted. The same songs as before, the same words spoken. He knows when to stand, when to sit, when to bow his head and when to look up once more. It is ingrained upon Phillip, a deep muscle memory, as thoroughly as it is entrenched in the very nature of this building. 

_"I've always gone," had been his reply when Phineas asked why. "Ever since I was a child."_

Every Christmas Eve; the only service he had attended with any regularity. If he could peel back the layers of time, the years upon years, Phillip would see himself in every one. As a young adult, the veil of scandal already swirling around him, the year before he left to join the circus. As a teenager, awkward and unsure of himself, already doubting the words of the priest but cherishing this time away from his father. As a boy, so small his legs swing in the gap between the church pew and the floor. As a baby, in his mother's arms. Always with his mother. His mother beside him, holding his hand when he was young enough to allow it. Resting a hand on his knee to stop him from jiggling it up and down but never reprimanding him more harshly than that. The two of them unable to look at each other, shoulders shaking with repressed giggles as the old priest stumbled his way through the ceremony, the liquor fumes evident on his breath to Phillip and his mother in the front row. 

There is a new priest this year. He appears only fractionally younger than the previous man but he stumbles less, both on his words and on his feet, so perhaps he is a little less fond of the communion wine. The service remains unchanged, the same story about a mother and child.

Phillip has not seen his mother in such a long time.

The lady beside Phillip leans close to him, her gnarled hand touching his. “Are you quite all right, my dear?”

Phillip nods and tries to look reassuringly happy. But the fact remains he does not trust himself to speak without crying and he can’t even tell himself why.

The time slips past. Christmas Eve turns into Christmas Day. When the service ends, Phillip feels oddly bereft. That is a ridiculous feeling to have. This was where he wanted to be. He enjoyed this evening. Why should he feel so empty now?

He had planned to leave as unobtrusively as he arrived. The last in, the first out. But the lady beside him totters unsteadily and Phillip cannot leave her. He offers her his arm to lean upon which she accepts gladly and then Phillip has to wait for a suitable gap in the possession of people leaving the church in order to guide her outside. By the time he has seen her into a cab and waved her off into the night, there is quite the crowd on the pavement. He ducks his head so as not to be seen. Hunching his shoulders against the cold of the night, Phillip starts to walk. But clearly his slouched posture is not enough to disguise him.

“Phillip?”

Phillip stumbles, slows his pace. Surely he has misheard.

“Phillip, wait. Please!” The familiarity of the voice makes Phillip stop. The desperation makes him turn and face her.

He does not know why he is shocked. He knew that she would be here. He had not given up the tradition of attending, so why would she?

Phillip’s mother is right behind him. He wonders how long she has been there, how long she has been watching him. Her face is creased with anxiety. Phillip hesitates, ready to turn and walk away depending on what she says, what she does next. His gaze instinctively flickers over his mother’s shoulder, back up the steps behind her to the. A rabbit searching for sign of a fox.

“He’s not here,” Phillip’s mother says quickly, not needing to ask who it is Phillip is looking for. “He never is. You know that.”

Phillip does know. On the few occasions Phillip’s mother had suggested his father come with them, he had snapped at her that he had no desire whatsoever to sit in a frozen church and be lectured to like a schoolboy. She had always dropped the matter quickly, in fear of him declaring that they should not attend either.

Still, it would be foolish for a rabbit to stop checking, just because this is not the fox’s usual territory.

His mother’s anxious face breaks into a smile. “It is so good to see you, Phillip.” She takes a step forward and Phillip recoils, stepping away again. She stops, pain crossing her expression but when she speaks again it is with understanding. “I’m sorry.” She keeps her arms at her sides and doesn’t make another attempt to embrace him. “I won’t do that again. But... It just is so good to see you.”

“So you keep saying.” Phillip had often imagined what he might say to his mother, given the chance to speak to her once more. He never imagined those as his first words. He bites back the need to apologise for rudeness.

“Because it’s true,” she insists, apparently not offended or else knowing she deserves it. Phillip truly looks at her for the first time. Her winter coat is new of course, the latest style, but she is wearing the same red scarf as always. She used to give it to him on the walk home when he was younger, the material wrapping like a cloak around his small body. Her hair is styled elegantly but he notices the new greyness to it. There are new lines on her face too and they don’t quite go away when she smiles.

That’s not fair. Parents aren’t supposed to alter when you’re not looking.

All the time Phillip is looking at his mother, she is looking back at him, her eyes moving as she drinks in every aspect of his appearance. “Oh Phillip,” she says eventually. “I haven’t seen you in so long.”

“You knew where I was.” Phillip remains unmoving. His muscles have tensed without him noticing he was doing it. “You could have seen me any time you wanted to.”

“I did want to,” she insists. “If you only knew how many times I wanted to. How many times I started... writing a letter or set out to visit you.” Her breath comes shakily. Phillip has the awful impression she might be about to cry. “I didn’t know where to start.”

“I was disowned,” Phillip reminds her. “That’s an end. It doesn’t exactly leave room for a start.”

“You know that wasn’t me, Phillip.” A single tear runs down his mother’s face. She lets it go unchecked.

“But you didn’t stop him.” The heat has bled out of Phillip’s voice. Hatefully, he realises how perilously close to tears he is too. “You never stopped him.”

“What could I do? Do you think he would have just let me leave with you? And what would we have done, even if he had let us go? Where would we have gone to? We would have been ruined, Phillip. Both of us.” Another tear falls. Then another. “I tried to keep you safe. That’s all I ever did.” At last she reaches up a hand to stem the flow of tears. It is a pitiful movement. Phillip searches his pocket and finds a clean handkerchief. She laughs ruefully as he hands it to her. “That was always my biggest regret,” she tells him, “letting him hurt you.” She dabs at her eyes again, surreptitiously, hoping to not draw any attention in her every movement. “Now it’s my second biggest regret.”

Phillip half laughs too. “What beat it to number one?”

“Letting him take you away from me.” Finally able to stem her tears for a moment, she looks him up and down once more. “Oh, Phillip. I missed you so much.”

Phillip opens his mouth, still half wanting to say that she has had a funny way of showing it but what comes out instead is, “I’ve missed you, too.”

“Phillip,” she says again. She keeps saying his name, Phillip notices. Making up for all those months when she was unable to do so. “I’m sorry.”

Sorry doesn’t cover it. There might not be anything that does cover it. But Phillip reasons it is a good place to start. “Thank you,” he says.

Someone bumps into Phillip from behind. They apologise but for the first time in minuets, Phillip is aware of their surroundings, aware of what he is doing. No one else seems to have noticed the significance of what has just taken place. They have been talking quietly enough; he doubts anyone heard more than a few words of their conversation. Still, the moment is broken.

Phillip takes his watch from his pocket. It is in fact Phineas’ watch, given to Phillip as a gift when his stopped working unexpectedly. “It’s late,” he declares. “Or early, I suppose. Either way, I should go.”

“Wait!” his mother calls him back once more before he can even turn to leave. There is desperation in her eyes. Her hand is frozen next to his arm, clearly remembering her promise not to try and touch him again but wanting to hold him there none the less. “Please,” she begs. “Can’t we talk? Just for a bit.”

Phillip has wanted this. So many times he has thought about what he would say or do if he had the very chance being presented to him. A chance to rebuild. A chance for forgiveness. But he isn’t sure if he’s ready for it yet.

“It’s late,” he says again, more decisively than before.

This time, his mother does not try to stop him. She pulls her coat a little tighter around herself. “Of course,” she says. “Perhaps some other time. I will be in touch this time, I promise.” She hesitates, looking at him one last time before nodding rather formally, and turning on her heel.

Phillip lets her walk five paces away. Then ten. Then he goes after her.

“It is very late,” he comments for the third time but with new emphasis now. “I’ll walk you home. Nearly home. To the end of your street and then I’ll watch to make sure you get into the house okay.”

If Phillip’s mother is startled by his change of heart, she recovers quickly. “I’d like that a lot,” she says as they fall into step beside one another.

A gap of a few inches remains between them. Phillip doesn’t link their arms as he might once have done. It would be too bigger leap right now.

But then, there’s always next time.

 


	2. Vertigo

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The sickness comes for her at odd moments.One moment she will be fine, performing in front of an audience of hundreds, thousands.The next...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Vertigo  
> Pairing: Mild, past onesided Jenny/Phineas  
> Rating: Gen  
> Warnings: Sickness, Angst

The sickness comes for her at odd moments. Never predictable, never any rhythm or certainty to it. One moment she will be fine, performing in front of an audience of hundreds, thousands, called again and again on stage to take one more bow, one more encore. The next...

The sickening cloy of the perfume is her first awareness of dropping the bottle. Far more pressing is the awful, sweeping dizziness which has come upon. Sometimes there is a warning – a little buzzing in her head, like little jolts of electricity inside her brain or else, pinpricks at the edges of her vision. Far more frequently, it is sudden and without any prior notice. It is as instant as being dropped from a great height. The world rushes around her, even the impact of the ground not stopping her fall.

This time, she manages to catch herself on the dressing table. Gasping, shaking, the room darkening when she knows there is nothing wrong with the lights. The problem is inside her. But at least she is standing on this occasion. The perfume bottle is small sacrifice for that. Then the scent hits her fully and she gags, wretches. She never eats before a show but she can feel the creep of acidic, watery residue in her throat. This time, she still has the presence about her to sit, to pull the waste bin to her. Just in time.

Being sick is no relief. It leaves her feeling weaker than ever. When she is quite sure she is finished she places the bin on the floor and slowly, shakily, lowers her head to rest on the dressing table. She brings her hands up to the sides of her head. The cool clamminess of her own touch surprises her. It really shouldn’t. Not anymore.

Seconds pass. Then minuets. The spinning, swinging sensation comes to an end. A nightmarish carousel ride grinding to a halt. She makes sure to sit up, eyes closed still, to where the air is a little clearer before she attempts to breathe normally once more. Deep, shuddering breaths. But getting easier by the second. It had not been such a very bad attack. They have been known to wipe her out for hours. She had one episode which lasted an entire week once and she had been sure she was dying.

_Count to three,_ she tells herself, a coaching method she had built up over the years. _Count to three, then open your eyes._

_One._

_Two._

_Three._

Her sight rarely comes back all at once. Opening her eyes slowly helps. It creeps back in patches, in waves which could set off another dizzy spell if she is not careful. 

The lights of the dressing room are unfairly harsh. When she steps onstage, the dazzle will be far worse. She will do it; she has no alternative. But how she will do it is a mystery still. 

_Small breaths if you need. Don't worry about all that deep inhaling, in through your nose and out through your mouth nonsense. Just whatever works in this moment._

She is alone. She must be thankful for that. The attacks which come out of nowhere are the worst by far because she can never tell who will be present when it happens. The few time she has been unable to disguise it she has passed it off as merely "feeling faint". The excitement of a performance. Put it down to her monthly cycle. Far better than anyone knowing the truth of her weakness. Far better for no one to see. 

Phineas - no, not Phineas, _Barnum_ \- had seen it once. In a hotel room in Connecticut. He joined her for drinks after a show. She pushed aside the signals her body had been giving her to savour the moment, ignored them until it was too late. Barnum turned to refill their drinks, looked back to her on the floor.

Much like tonight, she had heard the breaking of glass from a long way off. But unlike tonight there had been hands on her, holding her, smoothing back her hair. "Jenny? Jenny! My God, are you alright? Should I call for a doctor?" 

She had never lain in someone's arms like that before. Never rested her head upon someone else's knee and felt better just to know they were there. She'd told him then what she had not told anyone before; it had been this way for years. No doctor could find the answer and she had given up asking out of fear of being branded unstable. A reputation like that could ruin her. 

Laying like that had been the first moment she had been sure of her feelings for Barnum.

Proof that feelings got you nowhere in this world. 

"Miss Lind?" A knock on the door. "Miss Lind?" The knocking cuts straight through her head. 

"What?" She snaps instinctively, then quickly catches herself. Temper is not becoming. She tries again, softening her tone. "Yes, Andrew, what is it?" 

"You're due on stage in five, Miss Lind."

Naturally. "Of course. I'll be right there. And could you ask a maid to tidy in here during the show? I knocked into the table and smashed a bottle."

"Of course, Miss Lind."

A final check in the mirror. Her hairstyle is flawless. A quick reapplication of lipstick. She has had far too much practice at this to allow it to meddle with her image. An aftertaste of vomit and a tremble in her hands are all she has to show for what has just passed. 

Not worth mentioning.

The show must go on. 


	3. Missing Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Everyone had an act. If you could pick what yours was, Phillip probably wouldn’t have chosen this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's Prompt: Missing Memories (very loosely interpreted)   
> Pairing: Gen. Possible implied Carwheeler.  
> Rating: Gen  
> Warnings: Light angst.   
> This could be read as a prequel to my First Meeting fic.

Not so long ago, Phillip knows he would have been utterly scandalized by how much skin is on display in this room. Neve is half dressed beside him, a lot of her piercings on display, talking animatedly to Deng Yan and not caring how her dress slips from one shoulder. The swordswoman herself has a foot up on a stool, inches of bare thigh visible as she adjusts the strap of a knife around her leg - a new element to her routine courtesy of another great Barnum idea.  

On Phillip's other side, Anne is wearing her oh so revealing costume. She rests both her feet up on the dressing table, relaxed at complete ease as Nea winds her hair up to hide it beneath the, now slightly famous, pink wig. 

It had been Anne who first suggested this to Phillip. She’d been combing through her natural, curling hair one morning, furiously attacking the same tangle again and again. Phillip winced just watching her and eventually could take it no more. He offered to help. Anne had handed over the comb but it was clear she was hesitant to Phillip’s abilities. It was always a pleasure to be able to surprise her. It took quite a bit of smoothing oil and a lot of patience, but Phillip had worked through the tangle. He hadn’t even pulled, although Anne had tensed her shoulders in anticipation to begin with. Then he’d carried on, styling Anne’s hair, braiding it back from her face and fastening it with a ribbon she’d left lying on the bedside table. She’d been rather stunned when he finished. All day long, the girls at the circus had admired her new hairstyle and begged her to show them how to do it too. Eventually she told them all that it was Phillip’s handiwork.

Everyone had an act. If you could pick what yours was, Phillip probably wouldn’t have chosen hairstyling. But he couldn’t deny that he enjoyed it. There was an artistic quality to the work. He liked looking at a girl’s hair, a little like a blank canvas might be surveyed. He likes the methodical, soothing movements of his hands, keeping his fingers busy twisting, turning, pinning.

In his previous life, in the upper class theatres his plays had once been performed in, he never would have dreamed of setting foot in the women’s dressing rooms. They were forbidden territory. Notices were pinned to firmly shut doors reminding everyone that they were strictly female admittance only. When a man needed to pass on a message to a female performer, they would send a note with a maid. On the one occasion Phillip had thought that it could not wait, he’d knocked at the door and been greeted with it opening a minimal few inches, just wide enough for an affronted looking woman to glare at him and ask what on earth he wanted. She’d been clutching her dressing gown tightly around her neck, as though Phillip may attempt to rip it from her at any moment.

Arriving at the circus had been a shock by comparison. There were separate dressing rooms, naturally, but the doors to both were frequently left propped wide open. When they moved to the tent, there was only carefully draped material to separate the two rooms and that was more often than not tied back. There were screens for the more modest members of the troupe change behind. Mostly, though, the troupe didn’t care. They stripped off in front of one another. They wondered between the two rooms at will. Anne frequently spent time in the men’s dressing area so that she could better hassle her brother. Jeremy preferred female company and often found a seat in their room to curl up in prior to a performance. The process of changing costumes was about as sexual as putting on or removing a winter coat. Helping the girls with their hair and makeup felt far more intimate than seeing them strip out of their clothes. (Although of course Phillip never looked directly at them when they were doing so. He averted his gaze and found the floor or the wall or a chipped doorframe suddenly very interesting.) 

That being said, Phillip found that he liked his free admittance to this still distinctly female realm. The very atmosphere around him is calming. The familiar female voices, the amicable chatter, bursts of laughter or song as they warmed up for the coming show, it all eases Phillip’s mind. His hands repeating those familiar patterns. He could slip into a trance like this.

_“Come on, Phillip, you can help Mummy.”_

_He’s five years old, sat on the end of his mother’s bed, watching her prepare for a party. It is rather like watching a slow, very intricate magic trick – a masterclass in concealment and alteration. He’s asked first to hold the pearlescent hairpins for her, then to place them exactly where she indicates._

_“Well done, sweetheart. You did a really good job.”_

_Praise is not something Phillip comes across very often. He clings to it. His offer to help next time is greeted with surprise but once he has proved himself to be trusted with simple instructions, she trusts him with more and more. Eventually, she says she prefers his touch over that of her maid._

“Wow, Phillip.” Lettie’s voice snaps Phillip back to the present. His fingers have apparently been still for several moments without him realising but, as he’s more or less done anyway, she doesn’t notice. She’s too busy looking in the mirror. She tilts her head from side to side, gently touches the bun Phillip has secured her hair into, the loose tendrils that soften the sides of her face. “Anne was right!” she declares. “You really are good at this.” She grins at him in the mirror. “Where did our little rich boy learn so much about styling women?”

Phillip doesn’t grin back. He looks down at his hands, now clasped in his lap. They tremble ever so slightly. “I... I used to do this for my mother.” 

“Oh.”

It’s gone oddly quiet around Phillip. The background chatter continues but those closest to Phillip have all fallen silent, watching him. Anne puts her feet down from the dressing table.

“Phillip-” she starts, but before she can ask him anything, Phillip stands abruptly.

“I’d better go,” he says, grinning just a little too widely. “Not long until the show begins. It wouldn’t do for the ringmaster to not be dressed for his own show.”

He blunders out of the room quickly, not giving anyone the opportunity to speak to him.

That night, for the first time in weeks, he sees fit to change behind the screens in the male dressing room. No one can see his face there, or the tears he can’t quite explain.


	4. Tracks

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shifter AU. Phillip has been tracking a creature for days. It never occurs to him that the creature may be tracking him, too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Today's Prompt: Tracks  
> Pairing: pre Phillip/Phineas   
> Rating: Gen.  
> Warnings: Referenced child abuse. Referenced slavery.

Phillip has never been this deep into the forest before. The trees grow so thickly, so close together, that there are places untouched by the snow. As he passes through one such patch, Phillip worries that we will lose the trail altogether. The earth is frozen solid, too impacted to give beneath Phillip’s boots, or to leave the marks of the animal he is following. Wouldn’t that just be perfect, to have followed this far, to have been gone for days, only to return home and have to explain that he’d failed after all? That’s assuming he could indeed find his way home. He’d been putting that thought aside, ready to contemplate it when he had found his quarry.

He pauses beneath a large, evergreen tree. The bark of the trunk is gouged away in deep, angry lines. The claw marks are as wide as Phillip’s fingers when he runs a hand over them. He’s never seen anything like this before. In his days tracking the creature, the only signs have been the constant, methodical paw prints on the ground. It is as though this has been left just for Phillip to find, jut to reassure him he is still on the right path.

_Don’t be ludicrous, Phillip._

That is the sort of thing that happens in stories. Phillip was supposed to have given up his flights of fancy long ago. This is just chance. And a good piece of luck to have seen it at that.

Phillip lingers long enough to look up and note the utter stillness in the branches above him. Is it normal for there to be no birds singing at all? That feels like the sort of thing a hunter should know. It is certainly the sort of question his father would be furious at him for not knowing the answer to. His back twinges, phantom pain from the last time he had asked such an infantile question. 

He reminds himself, again, that if he is successful, his father will have no choice but to be pleased with him. He will have done a great service, not just to their town but to the whole country. He will have put a stop to a creature whose hunting grounds are unfeasibly large for one animal alone and yet with no indication of there ever being more than one. That kind of success would be a great honour for the Carlyle family name to bear.

Phillip continues walking. A little further, the trees clear again and once again the paw prints are there. They lie deep and distinctive, instantly visible in the snow. It is oddly comforting to see them once more; they have been Phillip’s constant since he entered the forest. He’s had to stop thinking about how impossibly large they are. Much larger than any wolf he’s ever trapped before. Much larger than any he’s even heard about being caught.

Further still, and the tracks lead Phillip to a fallen tree. The snow has been blown into dense banks on either side of the tree, making a barrier nearly as tall as Phillip. Just on this side the tree, there are four tell-tale markings, showing where the creature had braced before jumping. There is no mark against the tree to show where it landed so Phillip can only presume it made it to the other side in a single bound. It takes Phillip several attempts to scramble over the tree. He lands in an ungraceful heap on the other side. Pain lances through his hand. Upon inspection, there is a deep graze. Blood wells. A single droplet of crimson hits the snow beneath Phillip and he shudders. Bleeding is never a good idea. Bleeding means leaving a trail of your own. He’s close to the creature, he knows that. If it smells his blood, will he become the hunted instead? He removes his scarf and ties it tightly around his hand.  Just to be on the safe side, he unhooks the crossbow from his back, and notches a bolt into place. Ready to fire at any moment.

On he walks. The silence of the forest presses in on him from every side. It is late enough now that the light has taken on an odd, orangey glow of pre-twilight. It reflects off the white ground until the very forest around him appears to be alight.

Quite suddenly, the trees around Phillip thin out. He finds himself standing in a clearing. A large rough circle of pure snow spreads around him. He follows the prints to the centre of the clearing where they simply...stop. Phillip stares at the ground, not comprehending.

A perfect set of four paw prints, and Phillip’s own boot marks, lead to this precise position. There is no sign of the creature turning, no tracks to indicate it doubling back on itself. There is no barrier, nothing to indicate the creature concealing itself, or changing course, or existing at all beyond this point. The snow in front of Phillip remains utterly unblemished.

The hairs on the back of Phillip’s neck begin to rise. Lifting the crossbow firmly in front of him, he turns slowly, scanning the area. He turns in a complete circle several times before stopping, feeling rather dizzy.

“Well, well, well,” says a voice, directly behind Phillip. “You are much more determined than I thought you would be.”

Phillip whirls around once more, dizziness forgotten. A man is leaning against a tree at the edge of the clearing. He’s half hidden in shadows but he seems entirely unfazed by the fact that Phillip is pointing a crossbow directly at his chest. Phillip lowers it a little, but doesn’t relax completely. The man had certainly not been there a moment before.

“What are you doing here?” he asks, his voice raspy after several days of not speaking.

“The same as you.” The man does not move. He has one foot resting against the tree, perfectly relaxed.

His composure bothers Phillip. As does the fact that, although he can’t be certain, he can feel that the man is watching him attentively, unerringly. “You shouldn’t be here,” Phillip snaps. “It’s dangerous. The creature I’ve been following is incredibly dangerous.”

“Is it indeed?” There’s an amused edge to the man’s tone that’s yet to leave it.

“Yes.” Phillip is somewhere between frustrated and uneasy. This is not how a normal person reacts when faced with the prospect of mortal peril.

“Interesting choice of words you’re using. Creature. Not beast? That’s what the people in the town call it, don’t they?”

Phillip swallows. It is precisely what his father has referred to the creature as for months. But then he refers to anything he determines to be less than himself as a beast, even other humans. “I-”

“Not even, animal?”

Phillip says nothing. How can he explain what he has been suspecting for so long now? That what he is following is not an animal at all? Not any natural animal he has ever encountered, at any rate.

The man pushes off from the tree and takes long strides out of the shadows. Phillip is struck by how gracefully the man moves, stepping through the snow agilely, not once stumbling. Like Phillip, he is dressed all in dark colours. But whereas Phillip’s bulky furs and hardwearing leather are practical against the biting cold, this man’s clothes are sleek, tight to his body. They offer him no protection from the weather but he doesn’t seem to be feeling the effects of it at all. The sunlight hits his eyes, causing them to almost flash as he looks at Phillip. His eyes are the colour of whiskey, his hair as dark as his clothes. Even now, Phillip cannot deny how handsome this man is. He hates his own weakness more than ever.

“You should leave,” he says fiercely. “This creature has killed many people. It isn’t going to be caught by an amateur.”

“An amateur?” The man laughs and the sound briefly melts the silence that has surrounded Phillip for longer than he cares to think about. Almost as soon as the man stops laughing, Phillip is struck by how much he wants to hear that noise again. “What makes you think I am that?”

“You don’t look much like a hunter.”

“You don’t look much like a hunter yourself,” the man says with an assessing sweep of his gaze. “More like a little boy dressed up in a costume he doesn’t really enjoy wearing.”

Phillip has to take a deep calming breath to stop himself from responding in anger. That hit a little too close to the bone. He pauses and as he does so, he has the chance to reassess his own words. The creature had killed _many_ people. Phillip tries to sound kind and understanding. “If it took someone you love, I’m sorry. But following it yourself is foolish. I’m going to do my best to end this. Or I was, before you appeared and made me lose track of it.”

“Is that really what happened?” the man has been walking steadily closer to Phillip. Now with only a foot or less of space separating them, he starts to walk in a slow, deliberate circle around Phillip. Phillip follows the movement until the man has walked completely out of his eye-line. Phillip’s fingers twitch on the crossbow. The man is so close Phillip can feel his breath on the back of his neck. “You looked pretty lost before you even saw me. And as for the _creature_ killing someone I love...” The man finishes circling Phillip, stepping back to where Phillip can see him. Phillip tries not to show how glad he is of that fact. “Are you quite sure that it’s killed anyone at all?”

“Yes!” Phillip snaps. It is a ridiculous question to ask.

“Really?” asks the man. “Have there been any bodies?”

Phillip falters only slightly before answering. “No. But-”

“Any blood?”

“Yes.” Phillip again spits the word between clenched teeth. “There...there was blood in Anne’s room. I saw it.”

“Enough to indicate murder? Without any question? Not enough, perhaps, to have come from just a cut?”

Phillip is about to say that he didn’t have the opportunity to measure the exact amount of blood spilt when the man pulls something out of a concealed pocket in his shirt. Silver glints.

“Clever girl, Miss Wheeler,” says the man at the exact moment Phillip recognises the object. The knife he’d given Anne to defend herself.

Anger and white hot realisation crash into Phillip. “You,” he half gasps. “You’re the one... you took her. The creature’s...” It is impossible. Utterly, completely absurd. But it is also the first thing about this whole situation to make sense to Phillip. Fury near blinding him, Phillip raises the crossbow in one fierce movement and levels it with the man’s head. Only he’s not standing there anymore. He is not standing anywhere at all.

“And what are you going to do with that, little hunter?” The man’s voice is right next to Phillip’s left ear.

Phillip spins to face him, stumbling as he does so, all grace and predatory skill forgotten. “You killed them. You killed Anne,” he yells. “I’m going to kill you!”

“Are you really?” The man doesn’t attempt to duck, or dodge, or defend. He raises both his arms and holds them out, offering the free target of his chest. “Go ahead then. I may even let you hit me.”

Phillip’s fingers find the trigger. He’s ready to fire, has never had a shot as easy as this. Less than a foot away. An unmoving target. Only, he has never shot a man before. It has never been something he even considered himself capable of doing. But if anything could motivate him to do it was Anne. Anne, his best friend. Anne, who was dead, murdered by the man in front of him. Or so Phillip had thought.

He hesitates.

“You’re thinking about what I just said,” the man comments. “That’s good. Anne didn’t say you were an idiot, but then she might have just felt like being kind.” He sounds impressed as he lowers his arms. He’s still smiling in the same easy way he has been since Phillip first saw him. “Think it over, little hunter,” he urges. “Think about those people you claim I’ve killed. Outsiders. Figures of ridicule. Nobody would have even twitched if I’d have stuck to just those on the fringes of society. But there are people who want to escape in every walk of life. Wouldn’t you agree?”

Phillip feels chilled to his core and he knows it has nothing to do with the weather. How could he know, about all the times Phillip had longed to run? How he longed to be as far away from his family as money and energy could take him? “But Anne...” he mutters, rather feebly.

“Is clever, like I said.” The man lowers his arms and casually tosses the knife to land at Phillip’s feet. “She knew that if there was no sign of a struggle it would simply look as though she had ran away. She knew that her master,” he sneers at the word the same way Phillip did every time he referred to Anne’s enslavement, “would give chase. So she cut herself. Her brother too. Spread enough blood around to make it look like they had both been nastily murdered and then ran. She’s not the first to think of that, either. Now, speaking of cuts, how about I take a look at that hand?”

Without even noticing he was doing it, Phillip has once again lowered his weapon. The man does not take a step but he is suddenly, very quickly at Phillip’s side. He takes Phillip’s left hand in his and raises it between his, unraveling the scarf as he does. Phillip is too stunned to protest, or to pull away. The man tutts lightly.

“I am sorry about this,” he says, inspecting Phillip’s cut palm. “I didn’t want you to get hurt. I just wanted to make sure how determined you were to follow.”

“It’s only a cut,” Phillip replies, numbly. His brain is having to work incredibly hard, performing a spectacular series of gymnastics to keep up with the revelations it is currently being subjected to.

“Brave too. I’ve always admired bravery.” Quite unexpectedly, the man dips his head and kisses the palm of Phillip’s hand. Phillip yanks his hand out of the man’s grip and takes a few alarmed steps backwards. “My apologies,” says the man. “I often forget human boundaries.”

“What are you?” Phillip’s voice cracks. “You’re not an animal. But you’re not...human either. You just said so.”

“Do I have to be one or the other? Why not both? I can take on a number of forms. I do have a few favourites though.” As Phillip watches, the man seems to ripple, like a heat-born mirage in a desert. His body shifts and the next moment, a huge black wolf is standing in his place. Phillip blinks and the wolf is still there. Then it too ripples, shifts, and the man has taken its place once more.  “Did you like the little message I left you? On the tree back there?”

“That _was_ deliberate!”

“Of course. You’re good, but I had to give you a little help.”

“Why? Why did you want to be followed? I could have shot you just now. I still could.” But Phillip hasn’t made any attempt to aim again.

“You could certainly try,” the man says with a shrug. His smile turns into a rather more feral grin. “And you’ve already answered the question of why. I’ve been hunting too. I just had rather a different prey in mind.”

“Me.” Weakness washes over Phillip. He wonders if this is what a deer feels like, just before he lodges a bolt in its brain. He should kill this man, this _thing_ , while he still has the chance. He should run. He doesn’t think his legs would move if he willed them to.

“I had to be certain you wanted to come with me. I only take the willing.”

“And you think I’m willing. You tricked me. Lead me to the middle of nowhere...”

“If you’re having doubts,” says the man, passively, “if you’d rather go back home, I’m not stopping you. You can turn around now. You’ll most likely find that the return trip takes half the time.” 

“I...I can’t walk,” Phillip admits because one way or another he’s going to have to in a minute and he might just go crashing onto his face when he does.

The man chuckles. “Well you’d better learn how to again. And quickly. I haven’t bewitched you, if that’s what you’re implying. Willing is what I’m interested in, remember?”

Phillip contemplates his options. Leave this place, and go back home to face his father’s wrath, but to return to the life he has known. Stand here, like a statue, until frost forms upon his limbs and winter consumes him. Or go with this man. This impossible, undeniably dangerous, man. And go to wherever Anne is, to where all these gathered outsiders are supposedly living of their own free will.

 The man’s smirk is still firmly in place. “I could carry you, if you like, but I’m not dragging you anywhere. Not yet anyway.”

The prospect of being carried and the answering jolt of embarrassment acts like a current down Phillip’s spine. He puts one shaking foot in front of the other, and walks towards the man, who nods in welcome.

“Very good.”  Then he turns abruptly on his heel and starts walking away.

Phillip stumbles along behind. “I’m keeping my crossbow out,” he warns.

“A wise choice, little hunter.”

A small thrill has started to churn in Phillip’s stomach every time the man addresses him. He’s not quite ready to decipher whether it’s enjoyment or dread. “Stop calling me that,” he demands instead. “I have a name.”

 “Would you prefer ‘my prey’? I already know you name, Phillip. Anne told me. But where’s the fun in that?”

Phillip would certainly not prefer ‘my prey’. He isn’t sure he wants to be this man’s anything just yet. “And what do I call you?”

“You could call me a wolf, if that makes things any easier for you. Or you could call me Phineas, because that’s _my_ name.” They enter the trees on the far side of the clearing. The man’s dark back just ahead of Phillip ripples, and the great wolf is in front of him once more. Phillip still finds he can hear the man’s voice, even though he is certain the creature’s jaws do not move. “Now let’s have one more test, and see how fast you can run.”

The wolf takes off, great paws padding swiftly, swerving to use a tree as a base for all four paws to spring off from in one exuberant bound. Half exasperated, half amused, and realising the sensation in his legs has returned with a vengeance, Phillip gives chase once more.


	5. Fluff

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lettie and Constantine announce their engagement after the show one evening. Just after the last of the audience have left.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A day late now but,  
> Today's Prompt: Fluff  
> Pairing: Lettie/Constantine. Background Phineas/Phillip/Charity  
> Rating: mostly Gen.  
> Warnings: one slightly suggestive comment from Phillip.

Lettie and Constantine announce their engagement after the show one evening. Just after the last of the audience have left, Lettie herds everyone back to the centre ring. She reassures Nea that nobody minds her being half in, half out of her golden makeup, and tells Charles that he can finish putting his shirt on later. The couple stand together, the ink on Constantine's skin not quite hiding his blushing. Lettie takes a moment to look round at them all, grinning softly, and says that they have some good news. 

It should come as a shock to no one, given they've been courting for over a year and everyone in the circus has said they struggle to think of a more well matched couple. That doesn't reduce the loudness of the cheers that erupt at the announcement. In fact, if anyone was passing the tent they may have been forgiven for thinking a minor explosion had just taken place inside of it. Constantine grins sheepishly beside his new fiancé, for once quiet and reserved and very unlike the version of himself the circus are used to. A few moments later, Jeremy near jumps on him to give him a fierce hug and soon most of the male members of the troupe are piling into an embrace which is more like a very affectionate, many armed wrestling match. Lettie just beams. 

Phineas pushes to the front of the crowd, declaring it his right as ringmaster to be the first to congratulate the bride-to-be. (Phillip forfeits his right on account of being occupied with WD. Phineas sees an unclear amount of money being handed over, and hears Phillip grumbling that 'the tattooed idiot' could have waited a week before asking.)

It is only when Phineas reaches Lettie, that he finds he is unsure of the correct protocol. Embracing a newly engaged woman seems wrong, even if that woman is Lettie. So he settles for holding out one hand towards hers, uncharacteristically formal, and says he is very pleased for her. Lettie whoops with laughter. 

"Don't be an idiot, Barnum," she says of the handshake and knocks it aside in favour of pulling him into her own fierce hug. 

Echoing that contagious laughter, Phineas wraps his arms around her too. He takes the opportunity of being close enough to be heard to whisper close to her ear. 

"This is what you want, isn't it? This makes you happy?"

"Unbelievably so." They break apart and indeed, Phineas can see the joy leaking out of Lettie. Her grin is wider than Phineas has ever seen it before. "Why wouldn't I be happy?" 

"I don't know. I just didn't know you were really the marrying type. Not until you started stepping out with Con." 

"Maybe I wasn't the marrying type, until the right man came along," Lettie says with a shrug. "It takes a special kind of man to not just look past the surface, but to genuinely like the surface for what it is, too." 

Phineas agrees wholeheartedly, and tells Lettie so. He would like to talk to her more, to hear any plans she may have for the day, but the others won't let him keep Lettie to himself. Soon he is elbowed aside and the chance to ask for details is temporarily lost. Phineas has the vaguest of convictions that there is something important he had been meaning to ask in the heat of the moment, but what it is he hasn’t the faintest idea. 

\---

It comes to him nearly a week later. Phineas wakes up in the middle of the night and suddenly realises what it is that he needs to ask Lettie.

“Charity?” he whispers, nudging her with his elbow. “Charity!”

Charity grumbles at first, trying to hide under the covers.

“Charity, wake up. I just had an idea.”

“Phineas Taylor Barnum,” Charity groans, lowering the sheets enough to glare at her husband. It would be an impressive glare, if her eyes weren’t clouded with sleep and her hair plastered to one side of her face. “If you are waking me up just to tell me you’ve decided to buy a herd of actual live giraffes for the circus I am really going to hurt you.”

“That’s actually not a bad idea...”

“Phineas. I could murder you and make it look like an accident.”

Phineas chuckles and leans in close to kiss his wife on the bridge of her nose, which never fails to make her smile, even at unearthly hours of the night.

“I’ve been thinking,” he explains.

“Always a dangerous idea,” Charity responds, still groggy but she shifts closer to him. Obviously she is not quite so annoyed as to miss out on the opportunity for a late night hug. Although she could just be seeking the added warmth Phineas seems to radiate. “Let’s hear it then.”

“It’s about Lettie.”

Charity huffs, soft laughter tickling Phineas’ neck. “And is that really proper? To be thinking about another woman while in bed with your wife?”

Phineas doesn’t rise to the bait, for once not interested in the banter with Charity. “No, Charity, this is important. It’s about the wedding” He waits until he hears Charity murmur that she’s listening before going on. “I’ve been thinking about when we got married. And your father wasn’t there to give you away.”

“We eloped. The marriage was over in less than ten minutes. Even if my father had have been there, he would have barely had time to walk me down the aisle before we turned around and went back again. Anyway,” Charity nuzzles her head against Phineas’ shoulder “what has this got to do with Lettie?”

“Her wedding isn’t going to be like ours,” Phineas whispers, still talking in hushed tones to keep from waking anyone else up. “They’ve found a big church out of town, where there will be less bystanders to stop and stare but they can still have everyone they want there. The entire circus. I heard Lettie telling Anne. Then Anne asked if Lettie was inviting her family and Lettie said that would be difficult, as she didn’t even know where they lived anymore.”

Charity is very still in the darkness. Phineas wonders for a moment if she’s fallen back to sleep  until she replies, quietly, “And you think that bothers her?”

“I don’t know. But it just got me thinking about how Lettie isn’t going to have anyone to walk her down the aisle either. And she should. You should have done.”

Charity sits up to better survey her husband, even in the darkness. Phineas can’t see the details of her expression but he can almost hear the sad frown in her voice when she says, “Phineas, if this is about you having over a decade’s worth of delayed guilt for our wedding...”

“It’s not. It’s about Lettie. I’m going to offer to walk her down the aisle.”

Charity remains sitting up, just looking at her husband.

“I can’t make her father be there. If he can’t be proud of his daughter that’s his loss. But I’ve known her for so long now. She’s one of my closest friends. She was the first person to join the circus. Surely that’s good enough?”

“Oh, Phin...” Charity swoops down and places a kiss, a little clumsily, on the side of Phineas’ mouth.

“What do you think?” Phineas questions, his arms automatically going to Charity’s waist but still hesitant. “A good idea?”

“A truly wonderful idea,” Charity reassures him. “One of the best you’ve ever had. She will love it, I am sure.” She kisses him again and then again, deeper this time. Phineas holds her close, raising his head from the pillow to deepen the kiss.

A long disgruntled groan sounds from beside them.

“Charity,” grumbles Phillip as the two break apart, “whatever Phineas wants just do it so we can all get back to sleep.”

Phineas laughs. Even more so, when Charity climbs across him to kiss Phillip instead.

\---

Phineas wastes no time. The very next day he pulls Lettie aside before the show in order to put his thoughts to her.

“A lady should have someone to give her away,” he says. “If your parents rejected you, then they don’t deserve that honour. I would be proud to take their place. I’d never be anything but proud standing beside you.”

Lettie had looked very amused at being called a lady but then her expression goes soft and Phineas is rather alarmed to see tears in her eyes. He hadn’t counted on that. “Oh, Phineas.” Phineas is only ever Barnum to Lettie. Hearing her say his first name, and with so much tenderness and affection is almost as disconcerting as the unshed tears are. “You really are the kindest, sweetest man.” She pulls him into one of those trademark, all-encompassing, Lettie hugs that are famed throughout the circus. She even goes onto her toes to kiss him on the cheek.

Phineas holds her close for a moment, before releasing her. “So is that a yes?”

To his great surprise, Lettie shakes her head. “You’re a little late off the mark, I’m afraid.”

“Am I?” asks Phineas, a little taken a back.

“Yep. Charles asked the night we announced the engagement. He even offered to borrow Vasile’s stilts so that we wouldn’t look such mismatched heights walking side by side.” Phineas grins at the mental image but Lettie isn’t finished. “You weren’t even second or third. Phillip and WD offered to fight each other to see who would win the honour. I’ve never felt quite so in demand.” She giggles a little at that. Patches of colour rise in her cheeks. “Sorry to disappoint you,” she adds, hastily. “I really do appreciate the offer.”

“Never disappointed,” Phineas assures her. “So, Charles is giving you away?”

Again, Lettie shakes her head. “Actually, no.”

And that’s all she’ll say on the matter. Throughout all the preparations, the planning, the talk of the wedding, whenever the matter of who will walk her down the aisle is mentioned, Lettie simply replies that she ‘Already has someone in mind’.

\---

Constantine doesn’t really get nervous. Seeing him standing at the front of the church is probably the closest any of the troupe have got to witnessing it. His hands twitch and he had been pacing until the priest frowned at him so severely that he had to stop. He looks quite remarkable; his smart suit, custom made by Phineas, is pushed back to the elbows, showing off as many of his tattoos as is decent. That had been a request from Lettie. It had made the priest’s eyebrows rise nearly to the vaulted ceiling above when he’d seen it. He’d tutted loudly when the troupe had filed into the church, not least of all because all of the men were similarly elaborately inked. (The night before the wedding had been spent with Constantine working his way through the group, applying what he assured all of them was temporary dye to their arms and faces in artful patterns.) If Constantine is nervous, maybe it’s just that he’s concerned the priest will throw them all out before he and Lettie can get married.

The doors at the back of the church open and Anne walks in. The shimmer of her pale pink dress flashes where it catches the light as she walks hastily down the aisle and, combined with the pink wig, it gives her an ethereal, other worldly look. But that’s nothing new for Anne. She slips into the front row beside Phineas and nods to the priest to indicate that everything is in place.

The soft organ music – played by a woman so elderly she can most likely not see anything out of the ordinary about the wedding party – swells to a familiar crescendo. Everyone rises to their feet. Charles climbs onto his seat to get a better view and the priest exclaims audibly. But no one pays him any mind. Everyone is too busy watching as Lettie makes her entrance.

Lettie is used to making grand entrances. She crashed the elite, fancy reception at Jenny Lind’s concert without batting an eyelid. She marches on stage like a queen every night. But this has to be one of her best. Her dress is made of the same material as Anne’s, so it shimmers in the spring sunlight. It’s longer than Anne’s though, and is a pearlescent white. It is perhaps the only traditional thing about her outfit. Her makeup is the kind that only a circus performer could apply, or wear gracefully; it involves a great deal of glitter. She carries not roses, but long stems of gladiolus flowers in as many hues as Charity could fine. More flowers are twined through her hair and even her beard. Her arms are bare to show off her own tattoo on her left forearm; a pattern of stars which Phineas isn’t entirely sure is fake.

And beside her is... No one at all.

It’s like she says to Phineas later, shouted above the noise of the party going on around them. She never did need anyone but herself to give her away.


	6. "Are you sure?"

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Forgiveness did not begin to encompass what Jenny sought. Absolution was closer, yet it still fell woefully short.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Better late than never! \o/   
> Thank you [SilverLynxx](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SilverLynxx/pseuds/SilverLynxx) for looking over this fic and making some very helpful suggestions! <3
> 
> Prompt: "Are you sure?"  
> Pairing: Jenny/Charity, background Phineas/Phillip and Charity/Phineas, past onesided Jenny/Phineas  
> Rating: Mature  
> Warnings: Dom/sub relationships.

There are certain things that Jenny desires. They are things she knows would surprise the most open minded of people if they could see inside her head and would sicken or alarm everyone else. Desires like hers carried labels – dangerous, lunatic. They carried recommendations – incarceration, isolation, treatment. So she knows far better than to tell anyone.

It helps that even she struggles to identify her needs in words. She should know her own mind better by now. The thoughts have been with her long enough; since she was little more than a child. It started with an intense need to please those around her, rarely satisfied owing to the fact that she had already sullied her family's name by the very act of being born. Pride was never something her shamed mother was likely to show towards Jenny. Then she had died, before Jenny ever reached the dizzying heights of her success and Jenny could never feel properly disappointed about that. Her mother had failed to show love towards a little girl; she did not deserve to bask in that girl's success.

If Jenny had ever lost her sanity enough to confess the thoughts she had, the listener may have looked upon her childhood as the root cause. A latent attempt to seek the acceptance denied to her as a child, to gain penance for sins she could not help her part in committing. It would have been a neatly packaged reasoning. Jenny knew it to be false only after having examined it in detail herself. The childhood bids for approval were the first occasions Jenny's strange desires had presented themselves. It was not the making of them.

The feelings far from fell away as Jenny grew out of childhood, into adolescence and then adulthood. Her steady climb up the social ladder, one performance at a time, was frequented with pitfalls of her own making. They could trip her more successfully than any rumour or gossip, any verbal arrow attempting to pierce her already crystallizing exterior, if they were to be revealed. The feelings morphed along with Jenny's status. Innocence became perverse. A need to please, to be admonished when she did not please, had a new element now. That was truly where the problems started and the point at which she stopped being able to explain herself to any rational human being.

She did not always keep her secret so closely veiled. There had been men. There always were. A seemingly never ending stream of admirers at the stage door or at the elite parties she now attended. While she hesitated to let them get close to her for fear of reliving her mother's past, there had been a select few she thought, however briefly, were worth the risk. She never told them precisely what she wanted, of course. She stepped around it and dressed it up with pretty words and sly metaphors. They hadn't understood. Some had not even attempted to. Others had thought that this was a demure request simply for carnal pleasures. That missed the point entirely and so Jenny gave up with men for the most part. Women could be a little easier. When two women were at play with one another, they were already transcending so many societal norms and realms of decency that it was harder to shock with just one more. There had been one woman, who had become her constant, dear companion for a little over a year. She had understood things better and the pair found that an arrangement could be made that was mutually agreeable. Jenny wanted control by giving it up. Her companion wanted to take it. Still Jenny hesitated to reveal the entire truth, the deepest, basest of her needs. She was bitterly grateful for that when she discovered her companion was more interested in the lifestyle Jenny could fund than any kind of life together.

Jenny had given up trying for connection altogether after that. She had done a good job of avoiding it too, until Barnum came along. He strode right into her life as though he owned the palace they both stood in. Jenny had taken what she thought would be a well placed gamble. It opened her heart to possibilities she had long since finished mourning the death of.

In the end, it had come close to ruining both of them. But unlike when she had discovered her female companion's betrayal, Jenny could not stem her want. If anything, she felt cut open. The thoughts she had struggled to keep encased for so long were threatening to spill out of her. Her actions thereafter are coloured by that sensation which feels as though she is both burning and evaporating in one single moment.

The truth was, treachery was not in her nature. Jenny was not in the regular practice of ruining happy homes. She had thought that Barnum’s home was far from happy – why else would he leave with her? She had thought they had a connection and perhaps they did, just not of the kind Jenny longed for.

She may have appeared a cool and distant, ever-aloof statue of dignity and status to those who applauded her in their thousands. But it did not take more than a scratch, a depression with the lightest of touches, to crack the veneer. Barnum had proved that if nothing else. The kiss they had shared may have seemed a moment of stolen passion to a gossip hungry audience. To those with a little more sense between their ears, it might have been interpreted as a cool, composed moment of calculated sabotage. Jenny alone knew it to be neither. It had been a last desperate attempt. A ploy to have, just for a moment, what couldn't be hers and hoping that would be enough to last her through a lifetime of drought. It nearly disintegrated both of their worlds. Jenny's reputation could have crumbled over night. It was exactly the kind of scandal she tried so hard to avoid. But she knew Barnum stood to lose much more.

Forgiveness did not begin to encompass what Jenny sought. Absolution was closer, yet it still fell woefully short.

At first when Jenny sits down to write to Barnum, she fancies she might be able to make amends via letter. She realises quickly that the written word will never do justice to the levels of sorrow she needs to convey. In the end, the letter she sends is short. She requests a meeting with him. She makes no presumption of when this meeting should be, or where it should take place. She makes it plain that she is still in America, staying in the apartment of an absent friend, just outside of New York. An extended holiday of recuperation and reflection. She will be ready to attend any time of Barnum’s choosing.

The response she receives is as brief as her request. The new address of the Barnum family, and a date and time for a meeting. But it is not Barnum’s signature at the foot of the letter.

“Miss Lind,” says Charity Barnum, opening the door to the smart town house the Barnums now call home. “I think you had best come inside.”

* * *

Jenny had not pictured making her apology within the comforts of a small but tastefully decorated sitting room. She had not envisioned the pot of tea set between herself and Mrs Barnum. She wonders at first if this is some elaborate trap, and does not know if she should brace herself for imminent attack, be it verbal or physical.

Mrs Barnum picks up on her tension.

“I do not often insult my guests, Miss Lind,” she reassures her. “Nor do I scald them with hot tea and I only occasionally poison them.” She takes a sip of tea and experimentally swills it around her mouth before swallowing. “On this occasion, it seems the tea is perfectly fine. So you have nothing to fear on that account. Please do pour yourself some.”

“I’m not here to drink tea,” says Jenny. Her body is stiff, sat perched on the very edge of her seat.

Charity reclines back against the cushions of her own chair. “Are you not?” she asks, raising her eyebrows.

“I came to ask for... forgiveness. If I might be given the chance to explain...”

Charity continues to watch her, as unmoving as Jenny but a great deal more at ease.

“I need to speak to Barnum,” Jenny repeats for what must be the third time since arriving.

“Yes.” Charity surveys her over the rim of her mug. “So you’ve said. But I don’t think that’s quite true, is it?”

Jenny looks into those blue eyes for as long as she can. Charity’s gaze is never harsh, never angry or contemptuous. It is merely assessing, taking in every measure of Jenny for what she is. It does not take long for Jenny to shy under it and turn her gaze away. “I don’t understand.”

“You wanted to explain. My husband was there. He does not need matters explained to him. I was not there. You also say you want to apologise but, I do not think it is him you need to apologise to, do you?”

“Maybe not,” Jenny confesses. She feels awfully like a reprimanded school girl and Mrs Barnum has never once so much as raised her voice.

“Maybe not,” Charity repeats Jenny’s words and pours herself fresh tea, anticipating that this may well be a lengthy discussion. She pours Jenny a cup too, perhaps knowing she will not do it for herself. “Go ahead,” she says, once she is settled back into her seat. “Explain and apologise at will.”

So, Jenny tries her best.

That afternoon is spent in faltering explanations, Jenny stumbling over her words as she tries to piece together her reasoning behind her actions.

Mrs Barnum remains impassive. She does not rise to anger or to scorn. Several times, when Jenny reaches an impasse, a block of words she cannot fathom, Mrs Barnum makes soft, soothing noises, and offers her more tea, or a biscuit, as though she truly is a child in need of comfort. Jenny cannot understand it. It is not she who needs comforting, surely.

But Mrs Barnum does not appear phased by anything Jenny says. It is only as Jenny talks her way into silence once more that it dawns on her that it is not her side of the story Mrs Barnum is likely to be concerned with.

“You don’t actually care, do you?” she asks, not knowing whether to laugh or weep.

“I wouldn’t say that.” Charity frowns for the first time since Jenny has arrived here. “I wanted to hear what you had to say. I wouldn’t have listened if I did not.”

“But it doesn’t matter to you. Whatever I said, it wouldn’t have changed how you felt or thought.”

“Not particularly,” Mrs Barnum concedes. “I have my husband’s explanation. I know what his thoughts and feelings were on the matter and those really are the only ones that truly matter to me.”

“Then why did you invite me here?” Jenny cannot feel frustration, just yet another layer of bafflement to add to the ever growing masses.

“Because,” Mrs Barnum explains simply, “I thought you might need someone to talk to. And I was right.” She glances at the large grandfather clock in the corner of the room. “It’s getting rather late. My daughters will be home from school soon, and I would prefer you were not here when they arrive. I am sure you understand.”

Jenny does. She lingers just long enough to help Mrs Barnum carry the tea tray back to the kitchen.

Mrs Barnum smiles at her assistance. “Thank you, Miss Lind,” she says, pleasantly. “And thank you for visiting.” That old familiar need to please raises its proud head in Jenny’s gut.

At the doorway, Jenny is prepared to say goodbye and for that to be the end of the matter but before she can, Mrs Barnum stops her.

“I am always free at this time on a Tuesday. My husband will be at the circus, my girls at school. Just in case you should you wish to visit again.”

At the time, Jenny thinks the chances of that are very slim. But, somehow, she does find herself coming back for more.

* * *

“I kept checking the papers,” Jenny says, on their third such meeting. “After.... after I quit. I kept looking for an announcement of divorce proceedings.”

“That’s because there were none.” Mrs Barnum stabs a needle through fabric. She is now relaxed enough around Jenny that she can see to altering the hem of her youngest daughter’s dress while they talk. “I walked out, briefly. But I knew at the time that it would not be permanent. I still loved him, even if I was angry at him. And I wasn’t angry for the reasons you think,” she clarifies quickly, seeing the expression on Jenny’s face. “He had taken out a rather sizable loan without talking things over with me and our house was going to be repossessed as a result. We always discuss these things together first.” She comes to the end of her thread and ties a neat knot.

While Mrs Barnum is rethreading the needle, Jenny asks, “But seeing your husband kissing another woman, that didn’t bother you?”

The other woman does not take her gaze from the dress she is stitching. They have never discussed her reaction to the kiss before. “It embarrassed me. To have it plastered on the front of every paper, and for him to not have told me first. Although, admittedly, he did have other things on his mind.”

“The fire.”

“Yes. You read about _that_ in the paper, I’m guessing.”  Mrs Barnum glances up from her sewing, and Jenny nods. Mrs Barnum looks back at her work. “The kiss itself did not bother me. It’s like I said before, about the loan. We always discuss these matters.”

Jenny half laughs before she realises that the other woman is serious. She appears absorbed in her sewing but Jenny is aware of the glances being thrown her way, waiting for a reaction. She doesn’t really give one for several minutes. Then she says, little dazedly, “You discuss... kissing other people?”

“Among other things.” Mrs Barnum shrugs and then winces as she stabs herself with the needle. With her thumb stuck in her mouth to soothe it and so sounding rather muffled, she says, “We have an arrangement,” as though that answers everything.

It is all she says on the matter and not long after that, the clock strikes the hour and Jenny now knows that as her cue to take her leave. At the door, she thanks Mrs Barnum as always, who this time laughs and shakes her head. “I think we can continue on a first name basis,” she says. “If we are to make these meetings a regular occurrence, it only makes sense.”

* * *

Jenny finds out the details of Charity’s arrangement with her husband the next week, back in the cosy, now familiar surroundings of the sitting room.

“You could be with anyone? While still married?” she asks afterwards, just to make sure she has not misheard.

“So long as Phineas were agreeable, yes.”  Charity elegantly nibbles the edge of one of the small cakes Jenny brought with her. It had started to feel rude to continue to visit empty handed. “These really are delicious.”

“But... you could be with any man, and he with any woman, and it would not bother you?”

Charity smirks, ever so slightly. “Those are rather set limitations you’ve proposed there.”

“How do you mean?”

Charity bites into the cake. Jenny watches her chew slowly, and considers that she might have done that on purpose, to give herself more time to think about her answer. “Phillip nearly died in the fire,” Charity says eventually, after swallowing. “I don’t think that was reported so well in the papers.”

It takes Jenny a moment to place exactly who Phillip was. “The Carlyle boy?”

“Yes. That rather brought matters to a head. He means a great deal to Phineas.”

While understanding the concern Phineas no doubt showed for his business partner, Jenny can’t say she sees the link between this conversation and the one which preceded it. She would say there is none, that this is Charity’s attempt to deflect away from an intimate subject, but she had spoken about the arrangement without a hint of shame moments before. She is watching Jenny again now, in that same calculating way. Waiting for her to make the connection. It doesn’t take long.

“When you say he means a great deal to your husband... how much does he mean exactly?”

Charity just raises her eyebrows. “We do not limit our agreement to specified genders,” she clarifies.

“And that doesn’t bother you either?” Jenny asks, trying to sound neither judgmental nor incredulous.

“Why should it? It is an agreement that benefits us both.” She touches a crumb at the side of her mouth with one forefinger, wiping it daintily into her mouth. Jenny sees the soft pink flash of her tongue.

* * *

Jenny leaves the Barnum household that day with rather a lot to think upon. She cannot help but assume that Charity had told her that for a reason. Jenny is not naive enough to hesitate as to what that reason might be. She just needs time to consider it fully. So, she sends a letter explaining that she will be unable to visit the following week, but she looks forward to the week after that.

And she thinks. And she ponders on what her response might be.

It doesn’t take long for Jenny to decide that yes, this is an opportunity she would like to pursue. Within the first few days she knows her answer would be yes. But there are other matters to consider. Her desires remain the same. They are not those of a normal woman, even one who is attracted to other women.

Jenny spends the two weeks stricken with the fear of what speaking the truth might do, and balancing it with the fear of doing nothing.

When she does visit Charity again, she does not bother with a welcome.

“There is something I would want,” she says, still standing on the doorstep. “No. Something I would need.”

Charity stares at her, more surprised than she had been when Jenny first arrived all those weeks ago. “Well then,” she says, stepping to one side. “We have much to discuss.”

* * *

“I harbour a will to submit. More so than would be thought normal for anyone, man or woman."

Jenny starts there and tries to make sense of the rest thereafter. Her wishes to please. Her longing to give up control and have it taken by someone she could entrust it to. That to be debased, utterly, was at the heart of her inner most thoughts.

Charity hears it all without flinching. No flicker of disgust or distaste crosses her face. She sits across from Jenny in her usual chair and simply listens. Only when Jenny stumbles over her wish, her need to be punished, does Charity stir. A slight lean forwards as her interest piques.

Just as she had done before, Charity allows Jenny to talk until she runs out of words. She considers her afterwards, looking her up and down across the sitting room. The gap could be that of a desert, or an ocean. It could be bridged with a single outstretched arm.

Charity does it with an invitation and an inclination of her head. "Come here."

On legs that feel they no longer belong to her, Jenny stands and crosses that impossible distance between them. Charity remains seated, stares up at Jenny for a long, tense moment. Of the two of them, Jenny should feel more confident in this position. It only serves to make her feel utterly exposed. She cannot hide from that piercing stare while standing as if for inspection in front of Charity Barnum.

Charity nods towards the floor, the command obvious. Relief makes Jenny clumsy. She lowers herself in a rush, her dress becoming tangled around her legs, and she ends up half sprawling, rather than kneeling, at Charity's feet. It is not the impression Jenny wanted to make.

A soft, teasing giggle lances Jenny with embarrassment. That shouldn't feel right. It undeniably does.

"You've done very well," Charity tells her. The sincerity makes heat rise in Jenny's face. A hand reaching into Jenny's hair and stroking sends heat pooling elsewhere too. "I know that was hard for you but I need to understand everything if this is to work. So perhaps you can explain one thing more to me."

"Of course." Jenny would tell her anything, would do anything. She would strip herself bare if Charity requested it and Jenny is hoping she will do so sooner, rather than later.

"Dominating, taking charge of you, and taking you in hand, I can do." A soft gasp leaves Jenny, to hear it put so bluntly. Fingers tense in her hair; a pacification or a reminder to keep quiet until Charity has finished. "If I am going to punish you, I would like to know what for."

Jenny shifts, tries to work herself up onto her knees. There is definitely a warning tug on her hair this time. She stills at once. "Take your pick," she murmurs. "Any number of transgressions, I am sure."

"For kissing Phineas?"

"Perhaps for a start."

"For doing it so publicly, for, whatever your intentions may have been at the time, nearly destroying a family?"

Jenny nods without words. Her gaze is fixed on Charity's knee and she does her best not to look up, to keep her position. As a consequence she doesn't see the moment Charity raises her free hand. The slap takes Jenny by surprise. The harsh sting builds in her face before she can properly comprehend it. When she does her breath hitches in her throat.

"If that is all you wish to be punished for, then consider that retribution," Charity declares, still keeping one hand firmly in Jenny's hair. "I have already told you I do not seek revenge for that."

"It is not about revenge..."

Another warning tug in her hair and Charity talks over her. "Or continuing to flagellate you for the same issue again and again."

"There is more to it than that. It is something I need. As much as the submitting and the being controlled."

"I would imagine they do go hand in hand." Charity loosens her grip in Jenny's hair. She starts to stroke once more, rather than pulling. She works her way from Jenny's scalp to her jaw, then round to her reddened cheek.

"This is going to seem cruel," Charity prefaces and Jenny wants to say that's the entire point before Charity continues, "I want you to wait again."

"Wait?" Jenny echoes.

"Yes. Another week, if you can."

"I waited two weeks to see you again."

"Yes." Charity continues her stroking, gentle movements at the side of Jenny's head. "So another week again shouldn't change your mind. I want us to have the time we need to do this properly. And I want you to be sure. If we are to do this properly, I will be hurting you much more than that one little slap."

"I should hope so," Jenny mumbles. She is not prone to even minor incoherence but if any situation merits it, this is it. She risks turning her head briefly to the side and pressing a kiss to the other woman's palm.

Charity allows it, even praises her as a 'good girl' and it's been a long time since Jenny was called that. "And," Charity adds, "you're going to stay my good girl. For one whole week. Until I know you are certain of this and until I have had the chance to discuss this properly with Phineas. Then, next week, if you are still determined, you are to arrive here at our usual time, let yourself in, come in here, and wait for me as you are now. And with decidedly less layers to hamper us." She fingers the collar of Jenny's dress for emphasis. "Understood?"

Jenny nods. What else can she do when all her words have deserted her?

* * *

Jenny kneels in front of the couch Charity usually frequents. In all her visits here, Jenny never took in the pattern of the tiles, or considered how cold it would be to kneel upon without the covering of her dress. Her skin feels aflame by contrast.

Jenny does her best not to squirm as Charity walks towards her.

"You've had your time to think," says Charity as she crosses the room with slow, deliberate steps. "So now I will ask you just once more. Are you sure? Are you certain this is what you want?"

Jenny huffs in frustration she has held in for seven days now. "I wouldn't be here if I wasn't. You made that clear before."

Charity laughs. It is not a cold, cruel laugh. Nor is it that delicately teasing giggle. It is just her true laugh, happy and genuinely amused. That makes it all the darker, the more alluringly juxtaposed when she says, "Attitude, darling. I'm going to have fun breaking that."

Her hand tangles in Jenny's hair as though it never left it, and she wrenches Jenny's head back until she can see nothing but the ceiling and the fancy light fittings above.


	7. Crossover/AU

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dragon Phineas AU. The scales are the most instantly obvious feature about Phineas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: AU/Crossover (Author's choice)  
> Pairing: Phineas/Phillip  
> Rating: Mature  
> Warnings: Sexy thoughts and mildly sexy deeds.

The scales are the most instantly obvious feature about Phineas. Small and overlapping, each no bigger than a fingernail, they curl from Phineas’ temples down along his hairline to his chin. Another line starts behind Phineas’ left ear and spreads in an even trail down his neck. They shimmer red and orange where light hits them. It could be mistaken for blood. Or a single line of flames.

Phillip sees those scales and thinks, _makeup, prosthetics._

He thinks the same when he sees Lettie’s hair – which looks more like fur – and the vaguely inhuman shape to her teeth.

He thinks it when he sees the feather’s that combine with Anne’s hair. The wings tucked neatly against her back, which spread and unfurl so naturally as she soars above the audience without any visible rope or harness, Phillip passes off as costume, and trickery.

The stage lights dazzle, the shadows hide what needs to be hidden. There is always a trick to these things. It is a clever illusion, and a good marketing tactic. _The Barnum Circus – populated with creates you’ll scarcely believe exist._

It’s all very eye-catching when you see it as a one off spectacular. It will be much easier for Phillip to see past now that he works here every night.

* * *

Phineas’ fingernails are abnormally long. Phillip watches as he drums them against the desk and reasons that they are longer than any man’s nails should be. Longer than most women grow theirs. They are not ugly or uncared for though. There is a delicate shape to them, pointed to a tip at the ends. Phillip can only think of that as an unnecessary extravagance for a man who until recently lived on the fringes of poverty.

The nails tap absently against the paperwork the older man is looking over. Phillip thinks he is being subtle enough but he must be caught watching. Phineas hums low in his throat, almost a purr. He stops and takes a moment to stretch. The movement would casual enough but there is a deliberateness to it which is unmistakable. An apple sits to the side of Barnum’s paperwork and as he finishes his stretch he reaches out and picks it up. He does it lightly, as though it is careful precision work. As Phillip continues to both watch and try to not be caught doing so, Phineas digs one long, pointed nail into the skin of the apple and scores downwards. A perfect line cuts through the flesh.

Phillip stands up very suddenly. “I’m going to see if they need any help setting up for tonight’s show,” he says, much louder than necessary.

Phineas just smirks at him and Phillip leaves the office quickly. There really would be no getting work done after that.

* * *

Touch is inevitable, when working in such close proximity as Phillip and Phineas now do. Papers are passed from one hand to another. The faintest brush of skin against skin. Sometimes more lingering; Phineas rests a hand on Phillip's back in friendly greeting. 

Phillip sits to watch a rehearsal, craning his neck to watch Anne and her brother as they fly without apparent suspension. He's still trying to spot the wires. A muscle in his neck twinges and he reaches to rub at it, only for someone else to knock his hand aside.

"Too long spent hunched over a desk, Phillip. I have warned you about the perils of poor posture." Phineas' agile fingers work the base of Phillip's neck, uncoiling tense muscle in his shoulder.

Phineas' blood runs hotter in his veins. That's not actually possible, Phillip knows. Biology was never his strongest subject but he knows that at least. Phineas is just one of those people who feels warmer than most. 

Philip allows the hands to remain upon him because he is tense and it feels undeniably pleasant. He tries to rationalise that, if one took leave of logic, Phineas does seem to be radiating heat. Almost as if he creates it himself. 

* * *

At first glance, Phineas’ eyes appear normal enough. Upon closer inspection however, they are the feature which Phillip struggles with the most to explain away.

When he first met Phineas, Phillip would have said the other man’s eyes are brown and left it at that. When under the influence of a certain amount of alcohol he might have added detail about their exact shade and tone, how they reminded him of burnt caramel and whiskey and sunlight. But there was nothing abnormal about that.

It is only through continued exposure, and no small amount of time spent looking at those eyes and trying not to lose his way in them, that Phillip truly notices the oddness to them. There is a slant, a shaping to the pupils, almost like that of a cat and ringed by an outline that is more gold than brown. And the irises themselves... They are not one solid colour at all. They are spattered with pinpricks of orange and red and gold. Flecks of light swirl within Phineas’ eyes like tiny burning embers.

They are not natural, those eyes.

Not least of all for the power they hold over Phillip.

* * *

 Aside from the scales, and the nails and the eyes and the heat it gives off, Phineas’ body is amazing. Phillip doesn’t realise that until he is dying. He’s lying in the burning wreckage of a circus, parts of the building fall away around him as the very air burns. It is odd, how calm he feels. He is going to die but there is nothing he can do to prevent that and so he might as well accept the inevitable. Shut his eyes and allow himself to drift off. He’s even stopped feeling the pain so acutely.

An awful, groaning, wrenching sound drowns out the roar of the flames. The roof caving in; Phillip doesn’t even bother to brace himself as he waits for the end to come.

Only it doesn’t come. The crunching, crumbling of a building being destroyed goes on and Phillip becomes aware of his own name being called over the sound. It takes a gargantuan effort just to open his eyes once more. At first all he can see if fire, the air so hot and the flames so bright they blind him. Then he becomes aware of a dark shape, moving towards him through the inferno. It gets close enough for Phillip to make out a vaguely human form.

The figure does not flinch as the flames lick at it. A fallen beam blocks its path but it barely hesitates. It pauses just to grip the beam in its hands and break it in two. Splinters as thick as Phillip’s fingers fly in all directions to be consumed by the heat. Phillip blinks, long and slow. He opens his eyes again to find the figure kneeling over him, blocking him. It is Phineas, but not as Phillip has ever seen him before. His eyes have morphed into small, reptilian slits; the scales have spread until there is little of his skin left to touch, if Phillip were able to lift a hand to do so. His features are twisting, contorting into something else entirely.

Strong arms – impossibly strong arms which just pulled apart a beam the size of Phillip’s body – wrap around him, encase him. Phillip weighs no more than a doll to a creature like Phineas.

Darkness comes for Phillip before they leave the building, but not before Phillip sees the flames licking at Phineas’ body. The touch the scales and leap and dance up and over them without burning. Phineas doesn’t as much as flinch. Because a dragon cannot be hurt by heat.

* * *

Phillip wakes in a hospital room with pain and new understanding. Anne is beside him, her wings bound close to her body so as to remain hidden beneath her dress. Phillip can see the outline over her shoulder blades when she turns her back to him. If he listens closely, he can hear the movement of the feathers. Everyone else would pass it off fabric rustling, and a trick of their mind. 

Not so for Phillip. Not anymore. 

His burns are numerous, but most will heal. His lungs will clear in time. The puncture marks over his ribs, telltale sign of five sharp claws digging into his side, he will bear forever. 

"He wouldn't let you go," Anne whispers, as close to Phillip's ear as she can get. "He wouldn't let anyone get close enough to attend to you. He just saw everyone as a threat." 

"How... how did you get him to..." Phillip's voice is raspy. He stops speaking to allow Anne to press a glass of water against his lips.

"Lettie. She's the only real match for him in the circus."

"What is she?" Phillip asks, aware of the rudeness even as he does so.

"She's a shifter," replies Anne without apparent offence on Lettie's behalf. "One who takes the form of a particularly ferocious female bear when provoked. Not really a challenge for a fully transformed dragon but enough to subdue one still mostly human, who was simply concerned for his mate." 

Phillip doesn’t correct her that he isn't Phineas' mate. Not yet. It was inevitable before the fire. Instead he asks, "What about you? What are you? What are all of the others at the circus?"

The corners of Anne's eyes crease as she smiles. It's the most perfectly human gesture for a perfectly inhuman creature to make. "Oh Phillip," she murmurs, helping him with the water once more. "There's plenty of time for you to discover all of that."

* * *

The scales do not stop at Phineas’ neck. Phillip discovers them inch by inch, button by button as he undoes Phineas’ shirt and works his way downward. He follows the scales like a treasure trail, tracing over them with his fingers, his mouth. Phineas hums his approval and it really does sound more like a purr at this point. Phillip can feel it in the other man’s chest as he grazes a nipple with his lips. He follows that with an experimental flick of his tongue and listens to the different sound Phineas makes at that. Here and there, Phillip nips gently. Then not so gently when he remembers who he is dealing with and how impervious their skin is.

Both skin and scales disappear beneath the waist of Phineas’ trousers and Phillip wonders how far down those scales really go. Will they be present on Phineas’ cock too? The scales he can reach add pattern and texture to the touch and he cannot begin to imagine what they will feel like elsewhere. How they might feel inside of him.

One hand settles at the back of Phillip’s neck. Fingers weave into his hair and then the unmistakable brush of nails – claws – against his scalp. Phillip pauses, but only momentarily. Just long enough to get used to the weight of the hand, and the fresh pressure and heat that it adds. The hand against Phillip’s neck pulsates heat in small waves that might be attuned to the beating of Phineas’ heart. Phillip doesn’t know enough about dragon physiology to know for sure yet. If Phillip hesitates for too long, the claws twitch against Phillip’s skin. A light, prodding reminder.  Occasionally they scrape his skin with the lightest of pressure, a gentle scratch and nothing more. They never cut into flesh, not after the fire and the marks forever left on Phillip’s body. Phineas can make his touch hotter at will but never enough to burn Phillip, or brand him. He has never intentionally hurt Phillip. ( _“Not until you give me a reason to, my love,” he had said. There had been a teasing, sultry note to his tone when he said it and Phillip couldn’t work out if he meant it as a threat or a promise. He took it as both. He wasn’t sure if he was brave enough to test it yet.)_

The pressure on Phillip’s neck becomes primal. It is how one might hold the scruff of a small animal. The hands which never burn act as a guide, steering Phillip upwards once more. When they kiss, Phineas’ tongue glances past Phillip’s teeth, sweeps Phillip’s tongue, the roof of his mouth. Phillip would be the first to admit that he isn’t the most experienced kisser in the world, but he suspects that level of oral dexterity is not normal. He anticipates it could have a world of added benefits.

But when they break apart, and Phillip can look into Phineas’ face, everything else disappears into quiet insignificance. Dragon scales and metal-piercing nails and blood which flows like lava and tongues which can flick and curl in ways a normal man could never hope to perfect – all of that falls away.

From this position, Phillip can see into Phineas’ eyes. Those wonderful, swirling, molten eyes. That’s where the animal in Phineas is most visible. They are the eyes of a predator sighting his prey, and a pack leader surveying his mate. It is a look that could chill to the bone. It only serves to warm Phillip from the inside out. It is where the most human part of Phineas shines outwards too.


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As their shared laughter fades away to giggles, Lettie prompts Phillip. “Go on then, Carlyle. What do the upper class kids do when the heat gets too much?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: (Day 8) Ice  
> Pairing: Phillip/Anne  
> Rating: Mature  
> Warnings: Mild sex and mild bondage. Nothing overly explicit.

Summer arrives quickly, the first year the circus is in its new location. One day it is a mixture of mild and miserable, dampness and brief episodes of sunshine. The next, heat washes over the city. No one is anticipating it and for days afterwards people continue to sweat beneath thick coats, sure that the weather cannot last. But the heat just keeps building. The pavement grows hot to the touch, women faint in their constricting gowns and two people drown after trying to swim in the water close to the docks. The air beneath the big top wavers with heat.

Phillip and Phineas – mostly Phillip – had anticipated the pitfalls of winter. They had made the tent as waterproof as possible, secured everything they could before each big storm and had made it through relatively unscathed. Somehow, Phillip had not thought to brace for the opposite extreme. They struggle through a few weeks as normal before Lettie nearly collapses during their midday show, and Phillip declares this ridiculous. They quickly change their schedule. On the days when they perform twice, they move one to the morning, before the sun has reached its zenith. The second show is delayed until later, when the relative cool of evening is settling in. Phineas works double time and arrives that weekend with his arms laden with new, less cumbersome costumes. The vendors who normally sell hot food to the customers are prompted to change to selling drinks instead, as cold as they can get them. Fresh ice is bought each day but the ludicrous expense is offset against the revenue of thirsty, grateful customers clamouring for the drinks every day.

No one at the circus complains too much about the changes or the weather. The heat puts nearly everyone in a relaxed, holiday mood. The middle of the day becomes a lazy, dead time when anyone with any sense rests in whatever shade they can find. Only two people are left racketing around in the middle of the day. Phineas falls under the category of questionable sense and claims not to notice the heat. He seems mostly unaffected but both Lettie and Phillip are keeping a close eye on him; if he gets to the point of heatstroke, they’ll intervene. Deng Yan is highly sensible but she’s travelled to places much hotter than this. She doesn’t see the point of wasting time and continues her sword practice through the afternoon. No one is going to question her when she’s armed.

Phillip spends one such afternoon in the company of Anne, Lettie and WD, in an empty patch of grass behind Lettie’s caravan. Phillip’s skin is pale, and burns to a crisp given the chance in the way that the unworked skin of the upper classes often does. The others have teased him enough about it and Phillip has taken it in good humour. Now he sits in the shadow cast by the caravan, watching as the others spread themselves in the sun nearby.  

Anne stretches until her spine clicks and rolls over onto her front. She’s wearing the small shorts and shift top she always wears to practice in. Phillip once confessed to her that he loved the way her thighs looked in those shorts and she had given him permission to stare as much as he liked but he feels that doing so in front of WD might be pushing his luck.

As Anne settles in her new position she glances at her brother and says, “This reminds me of the summers when we were children.” WD murmurs agreement but doesn’t expand on the topic. Anne carries on instead. “We grew up down South. The summers are always hot, properly hot there. WD and I used to play in amongst the trees where it was cooler.”

“Where no one would bother us,” WD mutters but Anne acts as though she hasn’t heard him.

This is not the first encounter Phillip has had with the differing accounts of the Wheeler's shared childhood. He is never sure the extent to which WD shielded his sister, and to what extent Anne simply chooses not to divulge certain information. She says nothing in response to WD's latest comment. She closes her eyes and rests her head upon her folded arms. 

Lettie coughs lightly. "We never had much money when I was a kid," she says, in a bold attempt to cover the potential awkwardness of the moment. "But one year my dad got this huge tin bath." She gestures a wide distance with her arms. "Filled it with water for all us kids to play in. Of course it didn't stay cold long and the water was filthy within ten minutes. Actually, I'm fairly sure my cousins all peed in it." She shudders in repulsion and grimaces while the others laugh. "We never thought about it at the time. Or we didn't care. You don't, when you're a kid."

Privately, Phillip thinks that there is never a time when he would have bathed in filthy water, with or without the added threat of urine. Out loud, he says, “I wasn’t close enough with any of my cousins to share a bath with them. Now I’m only ever going to be grateful of that fact.”

The all find that highly amusing.

As their shared laughter fades away to giggles, Lettie prompts Phillip. “Go on then, Carlyle. What do the upper class kids do when the heat gets too much?”

It is not an unexpected question, but Phillip still finds himself unprepared to give an answer. He has no siblings with whom to share memories, fond or otherwise. No memories involving his parents spring to mind, certainly none he would wish to discuss in this context. There is also still a lingering wish to not say anything which will amplify the differences between himself and his friends. He has known them all long enough now, is close enough to all of them, that he can normally assure himself that they will not think of him any differently but he still doesn’t like to remind them.

But all three of them are now looking at him. Anne in particular is watching him curiously, like a puppet show she is waiting to see played out.

“At our family estate,” Phillip begins, and instantly wishes he hasn’t because if anything is going to mark the difference between his childhood and theirs, it will be those words. Too late to retract them, Phillip continues regardless, “We had an ice house. A little building out in the grounds. They stored great blocks of ice there for the parties my parents hosted. I hated those parties, but the cook we had at the time liked me and used to let me hide in the kitchen, so I saw where they kept the key to the ice house. After that, I used to steal it and sneak down there during the summer. It felt so blissfully cool after the heat outside. This whole room of ice, cold enough you could see your breath in the air.” A phantom rush of coolness spreads over Phillip as he says this. A lingering memory from all those years ago summoned back to chill Phillip pleasantly once more. “It was like... I don’t know, like an enchanted room in a fairy tale or something.” Phillip expects laughter at this fanciful description, but none comes.

Lettie has her eyes shut while W.D. looks up at the spotlessly blue sky. Both look sedately, easily content and Phillip knows they’re picturing being in the ice house too, even if they have no memories to aid them in their fantasy. Anne’s eyes remain as intent and focussed as ever, watching Phillip still.

“You couldn’t stay there for long,” Phillip tells them. “You’d freeze to death if you did. But I used to split my time between outside and in. A perfect compromise.”

Lettie sighs happily. “Wish we had an ice house,” she murmurs and Phillip can only agree with the sentiment. He remembers, but doesn’t recount to the others, all those afternoons spent just how his parents liked him best, out of sight, and that suiting Phillip just fine. With a book clutched in his hands he would curl up in the furthest corner of the ice house for as long as he could bear before sneaking outside to heat his skin once more.

Anne sits up in one easy, graceful movement. She settles into a crouch, as though she might be about to embark on an elaborate acrobatic routine. The movement draws Phillip back to the present as he admires, and tries not to admire, every curve of her body. She winks at him before Lettie or WD can see. “Well,” she says, drawing their attention too. “We might not have an ice house but ice, we might just be able to do. If we’re lucky.”

She springs effortlessly to her feet, dodges WD’s effort to grab her ankle and trip her back to the grass, and sashays out of sight around the corner of the caravan.

Nobody asks where she is going, or says much at all while she is gone. The day is too lazy, the heat too overpowering to provoke any deeper conversation. Phillip rests against Lettie’s caravan. The heat of the wood throbs through his body. He may even drift off to sleep momentarily because he is suddenly startled into awareness by two frigidly cold fingers pressing at the soft skin just beneath his right ear, making him flail and yelp.

 Lettie and WD laugh once more while Anne settles down beside him. Smirking, she says, “Couldn’t resist,” and then presses a cold glass into Phillip’s hands. It is filled with the sweet, fruity drink that will be on sale outside the circus tent later that evening. Several chunks of ice bob to the surface.

“How did you get this?” Phillip asks before taking a grateful sip. The arctic burn in his throat feels wonderful.

“I sweet talked the vendor,” Anne says, handing two more glasses over to Lettie and WD. “It didn’t take much persuasion. He’s got a soft spot for me.” Seeing Phillip’s surprise and WD’s glower, she waves them off without concern. “Relax, you two. He knows he’s out of luck. Never hurts to flirt though.”

Lettie raises her glass to Anne in a parody of a toast. “Hear hear!”

It is possible Phillip has been a bad influence on Anne. He’s not entirely sure how prone to flirting she was, prior to their relationship. Perhaps thinking something similar herself, Anne throws Phillip a second glance with just a hint of concern. Double checking that her actions and her words haven’t offended him. He grins to set her mind at ease and, looking at her now empty hands, he asks, “Didn’t you get one for yourself?”

“I thought we could share,” she replies, her uncertainty fading as soon as it arrived.  Her catlike, almost predatory smirk is back which makes Phillip’s heart lurch with unspoken promises.

While Lettie and WD joke and banter with each other a few feet away, Anne moves to sit closer to Phillip. It’s too hot to cuddle up to him as she might like to, but their hands keep meeting on their shared glass. The contents lower steadily. All too soon, there is the unmistakable, unignorable sound of the circus reassembling for the afternoon and the glass is nearly completely empty.

“Go on,” Phillip offers, holding it out to Anne. “You finish it.”

Anne considers for a moment, before dipping her fingers into the glass and extracting the one remaining chunk of ice that is yet to melt.

“You finish the drink,” she insists. “I’ve got this.” She slips the ice cube into her mouth. Phillip watches the bulge in her cheek as she sucks on it. She looks incredibly pleased with herself, as the ice clicks against her teeth.

* * *

It is not until that evening that Phillip finds out what exactly had thrilled Anne so much. The air outside has grown heavy and oppressive. A storm is rumbling in the distance, lightning threatening to crackle in the air.

Inside of the caravan Anne and Phillip share, a storm of an entirely different kind is breaking.

“Hush now, Phillip,” Anne half whispers as she runs one warm hand over Phillip’s exposed chest. “These walls aren’t very thick. Do you want the others to hear?”

Phillip is half tempted to say he doesn’t care. Let the whole circus come and gawp. But the few remaining cells of his brain not already switched off and handed over to Anne force him to hold back a whimper, and then a cry as she replaces her fingers with a cube of ice once more. She drags the ice across him in soft, sweeping motions, never letting him predict where it will rest next. It is alternated with warm, open mouthed kisses. The combination makes the most exquisite torment.

When the ice is swiped over first one nipple, then the other, Phillip would writhe right off of the bed if not for the ties binding him there. His arms and legs are spread wide and held fast, leaving him open for Anne’s ministrations.

As the first rain starts to fall outside, beating its staccato rhythm against the roof of the caravan, Anne moves the ice lower still. Phillip half screams, half laughs, into a kiss of Anne’s making.  


	9. Face Your Fear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Phillip never wanted children.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Missed a few days, skipped a few days to get here. >.>
> 
> Prompt: Face your fear  
> Pairing: Phineas/Charity/Phillip  
> Rating: Teen  
> Warnings: Referenced child abuse. Internal loathing and dark thoughts.

“We’ll be back before eleven.”

“You don’t have to be. Take as much time as you want.”

“They’re really very well behaved.”

“I _know_ that. They’re angels.”

“Are you really going to be okay?” Phineas stands frozen in the doorway, looking back into the entrance hall, and at Phillip who stands alone like a sentinel in the middle of the room. There is an abnormal rigidity to the way in which Phillip holds himself and perhaps Phineas is picking up on it. Before he can give voice to any further concerns, however, a pair of slim arms wrap around his waist.

“The girls will be fine,” Charity sooths, resting her head on her husband’s shoulder from behind. “You know that they adore Phillip.”

“It’s not the girls I’m asking after,” Phineas responds with a sigh. But when he glances towards his wife’s teasing face, tension begins to ease out of him almost instantly.

The pair make the most perfect image of domesticity and love and Phillip wants to capture it and hold it in his memory. With a welling sense of affection and the desire to do nothing to ruin this moment, Phillip fixes his own smile more firmly in place.

“ _Phillip_ ,” he emphasises with a fond roll of his eyes, “is also going to be fine. I wouldn’t have agreed to this if I didn’t want to. I love the girls. You know that.”

Phineas looks from Charity to Phillip and back again before shaking his head as if to sift bothersome thoughts right out of it. “Right,” he says, in a final manner. “You’re both right of course.”

“Then go,” says Phillip, firmly. “Or you will both be late.”

After that it only takes a little more urging from both Phillip and Charity for Phineas to at last take his leave. He loops his arm through Charity’s and with a final call of farewell to Phillip, lets the door close behind him. 

Phillip is left marooned in the middle of the hall. In the sudden hush left by the departing Barnums every sound seems amplified. He is acutely aware of his own breathing which he tries to regulate, to stop it from quickening. He doesn’t move from his spot. The black and white tiled floor beneath his feet put Phillip in mind of a chess piece waiting for a move to be made. He always was prone to the poetic, even at moments of great severity. For a minute or more, Phillip stands there. The steady, loud ticking of the grandfather clock is the only marker of time.

 “Phillip! Phiiiiiliiiiip!”

The voice sounds happy enough but it is so sudden in the otherwise quiet moment that Phillip jumps where he stands. He internally berates himself for being so skittish. What had he been expecting? To be able to just stand there until Phineas and Charity returned to relieve him of his duty? Still, he hesitates for a moment more, just one moment more.

“Phillip!”

Phillip breaks from his stance and hastens in the direction of the voice. The mental scolding continues as he goes. He is here to look after the girls and he is already doing a terrible job, ignoring them in favour of his own self indulgent melancholy.

Their high-pitched giggles and playful shrieks lead him down the corridor and towards the informal sitting room, which has been given over to the girls as a playroom. That is a good thing, Phillip reminds himself. They are happy. They are safe.  Before he can doubt this, Phillip opens the door and enters the room where the Barnum girls are currently playing.

Phillip had decided a long time ago that he was never going to have children. The Carlyle family line was going to end with him. That wasn’t the reason for his decision, but an added bonus that he had taken great pleasure in throwing at his father the last time he had been confronted about his continued lack of a suitable wife and potential for an heir. His father’s face had turned near purple with rage and Phillip had wondered if his words had been so effective that the man might be about to expire.

No, Phillip was never going to have children. But then he hadn’t foreseen himself starting a relationship with a married man. And then, impossibly, with that man’s wife. And that this particular pair would come as a package with two, already fully-formed, daughters.

The daughters in question are currently locked together in the middle of the living room. Helen’s arms are wrapped around her sister’s upper body as the pair wrestle with apparent intent. Helen begins to lift Caroline off of her feet.

“Helen!” Phillip exclaims, mildly horrified. “What are you _doing_?”

A second later and before Phillip can move to stop them, the girls overbalance and land in a heap on the floor. Far from being distressed, the girls’ laughter doubles. Phillip gives himself a moment to take in the situation properly. Both girls are laughing. Caroline appears neither injured nor upset. In fact, as she disentangles herself from her sister she fixes Phillip with a wide beam of a smile.

“Are you alright?” Phillip asks, kneeling beside her.

“Of course!” She pushes her dark hair back out of her face as she enthusiastically asks, “Did you see that?”

“I-”

“I nearly did it!” crows Helen with triumph. The younger Barnum girl has now got to her knees too, in a similar position to Phillip.

“What... what were you _trying_ to do?”

“That move that Dmitri showed us! That flip and throw thing in case we’re ever attacked. And I nearly did it!” Helen pounces joyfully onto her sister again.

Phillip’s mind flicks back to early that day when he had indeed seen the circus’ resident strongman with the two young girls. Phillip’s nerves had jangled uneasily as he saw Dmitri’s large hands so close to the girls. It set off half formed memories inside of him. It was only constantly reminding himself of of the strongman’s unerringly gentle nature that had stopped Phillip from interrupting the impromptu defence class taking place in the ring.

“I don’t think,” Phillip says, already feeling drained to his core, “That Dmitri meant for you to practice on each other. You both could get hurt.”

“Oh.” Helen looks up from the play fight with her sister. She looks at Phillip with consideration and a slow smirk spreads across her face, making her fleetingly look uncannily like her father. “Then we’ll just have to practice on you instead!” Phillip barely has time to brace himself before the girls are both on him.

As Phillip submits to what would have otherwise been a very unfair wrestling match, he reminds himself again and again to be weak, to not grip at the girls too harshly. Don’t push them too hard. Don’t use force on them. Don’t. Don’t. Don’t. All the while panic and worry for the girls clamours in his chest. He had already shouted at Helen. That was bad enough.

Phillip’s decision to not have children stretches much deeper than whether or not he liked them, or even wanted them. He _does_ like children. In fact, he loves them. Growing up, when he was supposed to be spending time with young men and women his age he invariably gravitated towards their younger siblings instead. They revelled in his attention and his genuine interest in their games and their fanciful stories which everyone else despaired over. In return, they made Phillip laugh. They warmed the chilled edges of his soul.

So children had always liked Phillip, and Phillip had always liked children and the Barnum girls had been no exception. They had latched on to him within seconds of their meeting him. That was a good thing, considering how close Phillip was going to become to both of their parents. Some children may have objected to the sudden presence of a third adult, a new almost-parent, in their home. Caroline and Helen were just delighted that their best friend was going to be living with them. If they thought the new arrangement peculiar in any way, they didn’t say so. They spent half their time with the circus. They were used to peculiar.

For the rest of the evening, Phillip chaperones the Barnum girls. He plays with them in, thankfully, more sedate play than their previous wrestling match. At all times, he tries to keep at least an arms distance between himself and them. He watches them have dinner, and eats little himself, his insides too twisted tight with nerves. When Caroline knocks over her drink, staining several inches of tablecloth, Phillip feels his stomach constrict still further until he reminds himself that no one is around to scold her apart from himself and he has no intention, is determined not to do so.

The girls are old enough now to supervise their own bath time. Phillip waits outside the door, listening to their continual chatter. His hand rests on the door handle. The first sound of distress and he will be with them but he is glad of the solid wood that separates them. Another buffer to ensure he will not be the cause of that distress.

Phillip is glad, very glad, when Caroline and Helen are at last ready for bed. He tucks them in just as he has seen Phineas and Charity do countless times before. He is about to leave, to all but run downstairs and a whole floor of safety between himself and the girls. But before he can leave, Caroline calls out, rather indignantly.

“Phillip! You haven’t told us a story yet.”

Relief is snatched away from Phillip, safety away from the girls and they’re not even aware of it. “Don’t you think you’re getting a little old for bedtime stories?” he asks, and instantly wants to clamp a hand to his mouth, to force the words back in.

He turns in the doorway to see Caroline and Helen looking at him with expressions somewhere between hurt and confusion. Phillip wonders if he looked like that himself on the day his father had informed the nanny that Phillip, half the age Helen is now, was too old for stories, and for lamps kept burning, and to be comforted when he cried out in the night.

“I’m joking, Caroline!” he says quickly, even though he hadn’t been. It was easier to explain it as a joke than to make the girls understand he was trying to keep them safe. Much easier to explain it as a joke than to see them looking at him that way.

He lingers for a moment at the bookcase, pretending to consider what was on offer before turning his back on all of them and walking over to Caroline’s bed. He settles down next to her, tries not to flinch as she leans against him, and tells her, “I think I can make up a better story, tonight.”

The girls’ excitement is etched on their faces. They always prefer the stories that their father, and now Phillip, make up for them. Phillip tells them the stories he had invented for himself as a child. They’d never quite worked for him, but the girls are gently eased to sleep with tales of knights who needed rescuing from dragons and princesses who ran away with mermaids. Caroline and Helen will never have to worry about the things that Phillip does. He will make sure of that.

Phillip had never wanted children, because he knew he wouldn’t be able to ensure their safety. How could he, when it was himself they would need protecting from? How could he be certain that he would never hurt them, never yell at or scare them? He could not trust himself. He had shouted at Helen, even if it had been out of fear. He’d hurt Caroline with his words, even if that had been through want to protect her. She leans against him now, heavy and defenceless with sleep, and he knows that he will never be able to make her see that she needs to be as far away from him as possible.

Phillip’s mother had once told him that he looked exactly like his father. She had meant it as a compliment. Phillip could only ever hear it as a curse. It was a prophecy that might just one day fulfil itself. One day he might not just look like his father, but become like him too. His temper would become too quick, his hands would become quicker still. Occasionally he felt sparks of pure rage and hatred – at the thugs who burnt down the old circus, at those people who heckled his friends in the street. Who was to say his anger would always remain targeted at such worthy recipients? How could Phillip ever be a parent when all he had for an example was his father, and his mother who had cared to do no more than witness the damage being done to her son? She never prevented it. Never held him afterwards.

Phillip should never be left alone with the girls. At the circus he can play with them freely, so many other people around to monitor, to intervene if needed. At home he knows that Phineas and Charity would never let harm come to their daughters. They love Phillip, but they would flay the skin from his bones before they let him hurt Caroline or Helen.

Alone, he has to monitor himself. 

Gradually, Phillip lets his voice trail off. Neither girl protests. Their soft, steady breathing fills the room and Phillip’s senses. He doesn’t untangle himself from Caroline. This close to her, he can feel as well as hear the breath as it leaves her. He can feel the warmth of her skin, the faint pulse of her heart where she is pressed up against him.

Phillip permits it. So long as he stays perfectly still, he can allow this. This is his reward, for seeing through tonight. He gets to lie here, with the two most precious girls in the world, and just remind himself of their continued existence.

When he’s gently shaken awake some time later, to find Phineas and Charity smiling at him, he smiles back. As the creep out of the bedroom, Charity whispers to Phillip, asks how the evening went.  

He could tell them. He could tell them about the panic that bubbles in his veins. He could tell them about the monster he fears lurks inside of him. Phillip entrusts Phineas and Charity with the biggest part of his soul. If he could tell anyone, it would be them. But he can’t bring himself to do it. Tell them, and he will never be allowed near the girls again. Tell them, and he will be cast out of the only family he’s ever wanted to be a part of.

So instead, Phillip just smiles, and says the evening went perfectly. He’d be happy to do it again in a heartbeat.

Phillip is selfish, as well as scared.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was Phineas’ mother who first explained to him how the music worked.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Soulmate (prompt 14)  
> Pairing: Phineas/Charity and hinted future Phineas/Phillip   
> Rating: gen/teen for safety.  
> Warnings: canonical character death

It was Phineas’ mother who first explained to him how the music worked. People often assume that he cannot remember her clearly and while it was true that she had died when he was very young, those parts of his childhood with her in are imprinted vividly on his memory.

Phineas couldn’t have been older than five. His mother had managed to get a job cleaning the house of a family who didn’t mind her bringing Phineas along too, as long as he didn’t touch anything. As she worked her way from room to room, Phineas’ mother sang to herself. It was not the soft, gentle lullabies reserved for Phineas. This was loud and energetic song that she near skipped along too. She was always so happy.

Phineas caught up to her and tugged on her skirt. “Who are you singing to, Mummy?” he asked even though he knew there was no one else there. It was the way his mother paused after certain lines and just nodded her head to the next few unuttered words, as though listening to them inside her head.

Phineas’ mother paused from her work long enough to sweep him up into her arms and hold him close. “Your father,” she whispered, right next to his ear, as though it was a closely guarded secret.

That day, in between cleaning a house filled with fancy objects that didn’t belong to them, Phineas’ mother explained to him about soulmates. She explained how you would hear whatever music your soulmate did, no matter how far apart you were. You could be on the opposite side of the world and if your soulmate went to a concert, you’d hear every note along with them. If a beggar started singing next to you in the street, your soulmate would hear it too.

“Have you ever heard music like that, Phineas?” she asked, kneeling down to his level.

Phineas shook his head. After everything his mother had told him that day, it felt rather like he had failed an important test set out for him. But his mother just smiled and stroked his hair.

“You will do,” she promised. “One day soon you’re going to start hearing that music and it’s going to be wonderful. And then when you get older, and you meet your soulmate, and you listen to music with her, that’s going to be even more wonderful. You’ve not heard music properly until you’ve heard it with your soulmate sitting beside you. Trust me.”

And, because she was his mother, Phineas did trust her. He trusted her about everything. He believed with all his heart that soon phantom notes of music would drift to him in the air and he would know it was his soulmate’s way of connecting with him before they even met.

Phineas’ mother dies a couple of years later and for a while that chases all thought of soulmates from his mind. When he does think about it again, he realises that the only music he hears is still just the regular kind with obvious, visible sources. He has to pick the right moment to ask his father about it. While never cruel or overly harsh with Phineas, his wife’s death has taken a great toll on Philo Barnum. Already poor, he now has to work doubly hard for twice as long just to keep a roof over their heads – however flimsy that roof may be. He doesn’t have time for an excess of kindness or patience.

When Phineas eventually decides the time is right and decides to ask, his father does at least stop to consider the question. He asks Phineas how old he is and Phineas isn’t upset by that; it had been his mother who kept track of his age. His father had other things to worry about.

“Eight,” he says, at which point his father grows unconcerned and distracted once more.

“Your soulmate probably isn’t born yet,” he explains, while looking over an order for the next day. “Eight years might seem like a lot now but it isn’t such a big gap between soulmates.”

This is an opinion Phineas sees in practice on several occasions. Ten years is not such an uncommon age gap, particularly when the man is the elder. So another two years pass and still neither Phineas nor his father grows concerned.

Then Phineas meets Charity Hallett and realises quite how very cruel fate can be. He knows from the very first moment he sees her that she is the girl he wishes to marry. Her, and no other. But she is not, can never be, his soulmate.

He tells her that he has never heard his soulmate’s music in one of the few stolen moments they snatch together. They crouch together in the servant’s stairway of her father’s house. Maybe a small and childish part of Phineas is clinging to the hope that she will laugh and tell him that any and all form of music has been banned in her home since she was a baby.

Charity doesn’t laugh. She frowns, thinking it over for a moment and eventually asks, “Have you considered the possibility that she could be deaf?”

“Deaf?” Phineas echoes.

“Yes. It means a person who can’t hear anything at a-”

“I know what deaf means,” Phineas snaps. He’s not stupid, even if he doesn’t have the same fancy education Charity does. But he regrets speaking to her harshly all the same. Her pretty face looks suddenly stricken.

“S-sorry,” she stammers, at almost the exact same time that Phineas blurts out his own apology. They both blush and look away from each other.

“It was just a thought,” says Charity, dismissively.

“It’s a good thought.” It is one which Phineas hadn’t considered prior and now he wonders why it didn’t occur to him sooner.

Charity cuts through his thoughts before he can start to truly wallow in them. “Besides,” she says, “I’m not a big believer in soulmates.”

Phineas stares at her. She might as well have just announced that she doesn’t believe that grass is green or that the sky is above and the ground below. He looks at her without comprehension. She always sits with such rigid stiffness, her posture trained into shape from an early age. Normally Phineas delights in the moments he can get her to slump or slouch or look in any way untidy, to loosen her constrictions just a little. Right now she looks like a woman twice her own age.

“How can you not believe in soulmates?” Phineas asks numbly.

Charity thinks on it for a moment, her lips pursed. “It’s not that I don’t believe in them. I hear music in my head sometimes and so I suppose that’s proof that my soulmate does exist somewhere. But can you really imagine my father allowing me to marry my soulmate simply because they’re who I am _destined_ to be with?” She spits the word destined bitterly. Phineas shakes his head. He has not known Mr Hallett for very long but no, he cannot imagine that. “Of course not,” Charity continues, briskly. “The only man I will ever be permitted to marry is one he selects and approves of personally.”

Phineas’ heart aches in his chest. It is not enough that he, maybe, doesn’t have a soulmate. The one girl he would ever choose to marry, destined or otherwise, is never to be his either. He doesn’t know why Charity is now grinning quite so much. Gloomily, he asks her, “What’s so funny about that?”

“Do you think I intend to let that stop me? I’m going to marry whoever I like. Never mind what my father, or fate, or any other force has in mind.”

It is the best news Phineas has heard in a long time.

* * *

Phineas thinks on Charity’s words. He thinks on her words more than he does on the words of anyone else. There is a woman who lives near to Phineas and his father who is deaf. Some of the crueller children in the neighbourhood chase after her in the street. They stand behind her back, shouting rude words and calling her names that she can never hear. Her husband can hear perfectly well though and Phineas has seen him chasing after those children, shouting angry words of his own.

Phineas has never been one to join in with the ridiculing. He has always quite liked the couple. After his mother died, they used to check in to make sure he and his father were coping. Several times they brought food with them which they could scarcely afford themselves but which they tried to leave for the Barnums anyway. Phineas’ father had never let them.

With that in mind, it seems particularly stupid for Phineas to have not considered the possibility of a deaf soulmate sooner. He risks his father’s anger by sneaking away when he is supposed to be running an errand to visit the deaf woman and her husband. He can’t linger to be delicate around the point, so he asks the man bluntly what it’s like to have a deaf soulmate. What does it feel like to never hear the music everyone else talks about.

If the man is surprised to be accosted by the skinny, strange boy he knew only as Barnum’s son, then he doesn’t show it. He indulges Phineas’ request. “I don’t know how to describe it, kid. My Lizzie’s been deaf all her life so it’s not like I have anything to compare it to.”

“How do you know she’s your soulmate then, if you’ve never heard the same music as her?” Phineas presses, growing somewhat desperate.

“Knew that the moment I saw her,” the man says with a wide smile that makes his lined face look years younger. But Phineas isn’t in the mood for romanticism.

“But you don’t really _know_? You don’t actually... hear or feel a connection? When you’re not with her, I mean, or before you met her.”

The man falters, a little taken aback by the fervent line of questioning. “I didn’t say that. You only hear your soulmate’s music because music brings up such strong emotions. If sound is taken away from you, feeling is still there. It just has different carriers. I used to pick up these strong emotions out of nowhere. Nothing to do with whatever was going on around me. That was our connection. You don’t need music for... Hey, kid, are you okay?”

Phineas leaves without answering, no matter how rude that is. He is not okay. He thought this would help answer some questions and it has, but not with the answers he was hoping for. He has never felt any strong pulse of emotion without knowing its source. Not any more than anyone else did. So that rules out the one theory that might have actually been a comfort to him.

* * *

 

Comfort comes to Phineas in increasingly small supplies over the next few years. First, Charity is snatched away from him. She is hidden out of sight and, without any kind of soulmate bond to connect them, Phineas feels as though the biggest part of his soul has been taken too. He’s so busy mourning a still living Charity that he doesn’t notice his father growing weak at first.

Before Phineas is truly aware of it, the sickness takes hold so vehemently that it cannot be ignored. It cannot be fought against. Every day, more life drains out of Philo Barnum. Once a strong, imposing figure, energy ebbs out of him with every breath. Before long he is bedridden and it becomes Phineas’ job to feed him, to fetch him water and to keep the sweat from his brow. All the while the angry letters pile up; from customers, whose orders have been missed; from merchants who demand payment for goods; from the landlord, whose rent is already several months behind. Phineas hides the letters from his father and wonders how they will ever be able to work their way out of the debt they have accrued even when his father is well again. That his father might not get better is pushed to the very back, the very darkest reaches, of Phineas’ mind.

Phineas knows things are bleak when, for the first time in years, his father starts to talk about soulmates once more.

He catches hold of Phineas’ wrist as the boy tries to force him to sip water one night. “You’re nearly thirteen,” he mutters, for once certain about his son’s age even in his delirium. “Haven’t you heard your soulmate yet?”

Phineas shakes his head, trying to work himself free of a grip which is still surprisingly strong. He doesn’t like the clammy feel of his father’s hand. “Not yet, Father.”

His father goes to speak again but instead breaks into a crippling coughing fit. It goes on for several minutes and by the time Phineas has helped his father to sit up and rubbed his back until it stops, Phineas has forgotten what they were talking about before. His father, apparently, has not.

“You should have heard from her by now,” he rasps. Phineas doesn’t answer, and his father remains silent, other than his coughing and his wheezing breath, for the rest of the evening.

The next day he asks Phineas more the same question, just worded differently. “The music, boy. Haven’t you heard it yet?”

Phineas doesn’t know if his father has forgotten that he asked Phineas this just yesterday or if he is desperately hoping the answer will have changed already. Phineas answers no, again. When he’s asked the same question the next day, and the next, he answers no. His father’s desperation grows as his life fades. Phineas’ own desperation grows too. He has never before wanted to hear the music of his soulmate as much as he does right now, just so that he could tell his father. Eventually, on the sixth or seventh day of being repeatedly, fervently asked, Phineas lies. He tells his father he has at long last heard the music.

For the first time in a long, long time, a smile crosses Philo Barnum’s face. “That’s good,” he says even as he turns his face away from the stale bread Phineas is offering him. “That’s good.”

It is the last sensible thing he ever says. Fever addles his brain thereafter. Within a few days, he dies.  

Phineas confesses his lie only to Charity, in a letter which is dry of tears but written with a hand that shakes so badly Phineas wonders if it is even legible. Her reply – itself a rare thing, for more often than not Phineas writes without hope of a response – arrives the day before Phineas is forced to leave the only home he has ever known.

_Your lie comforted him. You did the best that you could. Please do not blame yourself._

Phineas wishes he too could be comforted by something as simple as a lie. He turns thirteen living on the streets. Music, particularly happy or enjoyable music, is in rare supply in the real world around Phineas, let alone inside his own head.

A year passes. It is a year of begging in doorways and sleeping in alleys. Another year, with a winter so cold Phineas’ fingers seize up and he is certain they will never straighten again. (Years later, as an adult, they still pain him.)

Another year. Phineas is fifteen now and he’s gotten smarter. He knows how to steal without being caught. He has his own ways of making money, but never enough to live by. That winter, almost as bitingly cold as the one that preceded it, sickness comes for Phineas too. He keeps walking because he knows if he lays down in the street it will be the last thing he ever does. He will die like his father, but alone. There will be no one to nurse him. No one to tuck the sheets around him. No one to bury him. He wonders how long Charity will wait before she realises that another letter is never going to arrive.

One church keeps its door unlocked that night. It offers sanctuary to Phineas, and to a few other more fortunate vagrants who happen upon it. They are united in their isolation but it would not stop them from robbing each other of every penny they possess if given the chance. Phineas doesn’t care. He curls up on a stiff wooden bench and thinks that, if he dies here, at least someone may pray over him. He is nearly asleep. He is drifting somewhere between unconsciousness and the rigid alertness that  comes with knowing how vulnerable sleep can leave you. That is when he hears it.

It is just a few, hummed notes at first, and then a sentence. A woman is talking to him. No, she is singing. Phineas sits up, suddenly wide awake and looking around. An old man smirks nastily at Phineas from across the aisle and Phineas hastily looks elsewhere, scanning the faces of the others using the church as their rest stop for the night. No one in the church is singing. No one shows any signs of having heard anything.

Still, the woman’s voice continues. It grows clearer by the moment until she may as well be singing right in Phineas’ ear. Phineas wonders if this is what fever feels like. Had his father hallucinated like this, just before he had died? All that Phineas knows is that the voice sounds kind, and gentle, and happy. And it is singing him a lullaby. He lays back down and lets it lull him to sleep.

He wakes next morning feeling more well than he has in days, even when he realises someone has stolen his coat in the night. Snatches of song creep into his brain all day. There are more lullabies. There are snippets of nursery rhymes, songs he remembers from his childhood but which he had utterly forgotten about until now.  

It is that day that Phineas sees the man in the street calling for fit, able young men to join the railroad. Phineas may be chasing off his illness but he hardly feels fit or able. But he can lie about that. He lies about his age too, even though he is sure the man would not have cared if he had said he was fifteen, or even fourteen. It was only a matter of adding a couple of months to his age.

Phineas finishes that day with the promise of the first solid work he has had since his father died, and the voice of a woman he doesn’t know still in his head. By the time Phineas starts work on the railroad, he has figured out what that voice means. Phineas will soon really be sixteen. He has been poor, homeless, beaten in the streets for wanting food. He has nearly died a hundred times over from hunger, from exposure, from heartbreak and loneliness.

Somewhere in the world, his soulmate has only just been born.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even after all this time, after years, Phillip had recognised his father’s handwriting on sight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Last Meeting (Day 25)  
> Pairing: Phineas/Phillip  
> Rating: Teen  
> Warning: non main character death. Some angst. Implied past child abuse.   
> This is not in any way connected to the other stories I have written this month which involve Phillip and his mother. This is something else entirely.

A letter arrives at the circus early one morning. Whoever delivered it does not wait to find someone to hand it to. Nor do they leave it in the tent clearly marked as the ringmaster’s office. They simply drop it face up, just inside the entrance to the big tent and consider their job done. As such, the letter is walked on at least twice and could have been kicked under the seats and not found for several weeks, if not for Charles. Being closer to the ground than most, he is more inclined to noticing these things. He finds the letter when he arrives for work and, while he finds the way in which it has been left slightly odd, he sets about delivering it properly to its intended recipient.

Phillip goes bone white the moment he sees the handwriting on the envelope. His hands shake as he reaches out to take it and then for several minutes he just stares at it clutched too tightly in his fingers.

“Well?” Charles prods. His curiosity about this letter was piqued from the moment he saw it and now seeing his boss’ reaction only heightens his interest. “I don’t think it’s going to open itself, no matter how much you glare at it.”

Friendly and light hearted though Charles’ voice is, Phillip startles. He looks up from the still sealed letter for the first time as though he is seeing quite a different room to the warm, inviting interior of the familiar tent. The light behind his eyes has dimmed somehow as he looks anywhere but at Charles.

“You may go,” says Phillip, quite suddenly, turning his back on Charles. He has never spoken to Charles, to any of the circus, like that before. It is how he might have once, in a former life, addressed a servant.

Charles’ frown deepens. He doesn’t take kindly to that tone of voice and he opens his mouth to say so but is cut off by Phineas. The other half of the ringmaster duo had been making himself look occupied over at the cluttered desk they shared but had evidently been watching the entire interaction taking place.

“I’m sorry, Charles,” he says now, abandoning any pretence of work to stand at Phillip’s side. “I think we need a moment alone.” Perhaps from his new angle, he can see the expression on Phillip’s face better. Either that or he takes in the trembling of the younger man’s shoulders. Charles sees it too and, for once swallowing the impulsive jibe he would normally throw, he leaves without further prompting.

He’s barely a few feet away from the ringmaster’s tent when he hears Phillip’s shout, a mixture of shock and anguish.

* * *

“Was she ill?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was this expected?”

“I don’t know.”

“Had you heard from her at all?”

“No.”

“Had you heard from him?”

“...No.”

“Are you... are you going to attend?”

“I don’t know.”

Phillip answers Phineas’ questions numbly. It takes a great deal of effort to unstick his mouth for each word and so he uses as few as possible.

Just like the letter.

Even after all this time, after years, he had recognised his father’s handwriting on sight.

_Your mother has passed away. The funeral is tomorrow. You will attend alone, or you will not attend at all._

He had signed it with his full name, as he would a letter to a business associate, an acquaintance. It is not how a father would normally address a son. Particularly when bearing such news.

Phillip leaves the circus without speaking to anyone else. He walks the streets in a haze, trusting that his feet will lead him to his apartment even if his brain is otherwise engaged. Once there, he retreats to his bedroom and remains there for the rest of the day. He doesn’t come out for food or water. He doesn’t even come out when Phineas arrives back home late that evening.

For a while Phineas moves around the apartment quietly, clearly thinking Phillip is asleep. Only when he enters the bedroom, tiptoeing on bare feet, it is to find Phillip wide awake.

Phineas does not waste his time with empty sympathies or pointless queries about how Phillip is doing. Instead he places his coat and shoes to one side and lays down beside him, wrapping Phillip into his embrace. Phillip hasn’t bothered to get under the sheets and even though he is still wearing his shirt and trousers, he feels cold to Phineas’ touch. He moves towards Phineas, pliant enough, but doesn’t speak. Neither of them speaks for a while. They just lay together, Phillip’s head resting again Phineas’ chest. Phineas knows that he likes to be able to hear the heartbeat there.

After a long time, Phineas squeezes Phillip a little tighter. An advanced apology for breaking the silence. “Are you going to go?” he asks for the second time that day.

This time, Phillip nods almost straight away.

“Do you want me to come with you?”

“No!” Phillip snaps, instantly. He repeats it a second time, softer, with a voice like china, prone to break at any moment. “No. You saw the letter.”

“What’s he going to do? Have you thrown out of the funeral?”

“Probably.”

“And cause a scene in the middle of the church?”

“Yes. You don’t know what he’s like.”

Phineas makes a noise like an angry animal. “I know enough.  I know he barely qualifies for the title of father. He’s done a good job of pretending he’s not for the past five years.”

Phillip shifts against Phineas and for a moment he worries his words have pushed the younger man to tears. But it is just a short, humourless bark of laughter. “And she has been pretending not be my mother either. But I still want... no, I need... I need to be there.”

Phineas tightens his grip around Phillip. There is something fierce and possessive in his grip. “You really are,” he tells Phillip, quietly, “one of the bravest men I know.”

“You said that before,” Phillip reminds him. “In the hospital, after the fire.”

“Did I?” Phineas asks with fake absence. “I thought that was stupidest.”

Phillip laughs properly now, even if it is mixed with long held back tears. “It was both. Brave and stupid.”

“Yeah. That sounds about right. Brave and stupid.”

Phineas holds Phillip until the laughter and then, much later, the tears, subside once more.

* * *

The church is full of people. Phillip isn’t sure if this is the way of all funerals within high society, having attended only a couple before and having little to compare it to. Either way, he is sure his mother has never been so popular. His grand re-entry into society is with a full audience watching.

The stiff, sluggish movements of Phillip’s body are yet to wear off. He moves like an automaton down the aisle. His legs bear him to the front of the church and then nearly give out under him as he draws closer to where the coffin is laid out. As a result, he sits much too heavily in the seat beside his father. Every eye is trained upon him, apart from those of the man seated beside him, who is yet to acknowledge him in any way. Phillip’s skin prickles with unwanted proximity.

“Hello, father,” he whispers in the strained seconds before the service starts. He receives only a grunt in response.

Phillip is glad of the silence from his father. It will make getting through this easier.  He can say goodbye to his mother in peace.

* * *

The service passes as well as to be expected. It is a funeral. There is not much more to be said about it. Some people speak about the caring, kind, charitable woman Mrs Carlyle was and Phillip wonders briefly if he is in the wrong church. If they had said distant, or vapid, or weakened, he might have found it more believable. Some people cry. Phillip does not. He cried last night, and he cried this morning and, if he needs to, he will cry again tonight but he will not do so here. Not with his father sitting so close Phillip can smell the awful, familiar scent of his cologne. His father may even be pleased by this; he was always determined to force visible emotions out of Phillip, certainly in public. One of his many lessons may finally be paying off.  

A much smaller, reduced group of mourners continues on to the graveside after the church. Mostly family only. Two of Phillip’s cousins are there whom he has not seen in years. They stare at Phillip with interest but when he attempts to smile at them, he receives only startled, somewhat disgusted, grimaces in return. Oh well. They were never that close anyway.

It is in the churchyard, while words are being said over his deceased wife’s grave, that Mr Carlyle finally breaks the silence between himself and Phillip. He turns to his son and informs him quietly and without preamble, “This is your fault, you know. She was ill for a while. She never got over the shock, or the shame.”

Phillip barely flinches. He had been anticipating words to this affect. Phineas had been anticipating words to this affect and had spent most of the early hours of the morning whispering into a sleepless Phillip’s ear, telling him again and again that the words were untrue. They hurt little less than they once would have done but whether that is due to Phineas’ counterbalance, or the years Phillip has had to grow impervious to their sting, he does not know.

“Didn’t you hear me?” Mr Carlyle hisses.

“I think a few people heard you,” Phillip replies, keeping his voice steady. It is true that those closest to the two men have all turned to look at them. Phillip’s cousins are huddled close together and watch on almost hungrily, keen for any more action about to unfold.

Mr Carlyle’s face colours rapidly. He goes past the red of embarrassment and shock at being spoken back to and settles on the mild purple Phillip associates with anger.”How dare you?” He is forgetting to whisper now. The priest falters in his usually flawless speech and like the rest of the crowd, looks towards the father and son. Heedless of this, or the scene he is causing, Mr Carlyle rages on in an angry snarl that carries clearly to all those assembled. “You have as little shame now as you always have done, Phillip. This is exactly what I was talking about. I tried my hardest to make a good, worthy son out of you.” Phillip almost laughs but restrains himself. His cousins both giggle. Phillip’s eyes remain fixed on the open mouth of the grave. “I realised years ago that all of my efforts had been wasted. You threw everything back in our faces and even now you continue to do so. You-”

What exactly Phillip is or has done, he doesn’t find out. His father stops talking abruptly and with a fettered gasp of air. Phillip looks at him properly for the first time since arriving at the church, ready to ask which oversized cat has at last seized his tongue. The purple colouring of his father’s face has turned blotchy in the way it only does during the deepest, most apoplectic of his rages. But he is not looking at Phillip. He is looking straight over Phillip’s head and so Phillip turns to see what is so very interesting there.

Behind Phillip, the churchyard curves upwards onto a small, grassy hill. A few moments ago it had just been an empty space, plain and uninteresting and certainly not worthy of anger or distaste. But now Phillip can see exactly what has his father so worked up.

A group of people are walking over the crest of the hill. They stop there, forming a straggling line and looking down on the mourning party beneath them. With the sun shining down on them, Phillip can see them in complete detail but he knows he would recognise them through a blizzard.

The entire circus troupe has come to Mrs Carlyle’s funeral. There is not a drop of their usual colour and brightness amongst them. They all wear black, their hands clasped behind their backs and their heads lowered, the image of perfectly respectful mourners. Some of the girls have traditional mourning veils pinned in place. Deng Yan looks beautiful and strange in exotic robes of dark silk. Barnum stands in their midst, the first solid, secure object Phillip has seen in hours.

The group do not come any further, pose no interruption to the proceedings other than simply by being there. Clearly, Mr Carlyle disagrees. “What, _on earth_ , are they doing here?”

“It appears,” Phillip’s voice sounds strange to his own ears, “that they have come to the burial.”

Phillip’s father grabs his arm so tightly Phillip hisses. “I told you. I told you that you could come alone, or not at all. I will not have you disgracing this family at your mother’s funeral of all places.”

“I think it’s you who is doing that.” It takes a great effort to wrench free of his father’s grip, but Phillip manages it with a single twist, practiced after many occasions of finding himself within that hold. “I didn’t invite them. They came anyway.” He doesn’t wait for his father to say another word, or give him the chance to grab him again. Phillip turns his back on him, on every guest gathered at the graveside, and begins to walk away towards the hill.

Behind him, his father continues to shout angry words. His wife’s funeral and the now numerous spectators are not enough to keep Mr Carlyle’s temper in check. It is just enough to stop him from chasing after his son, from striking him as Phillip knows he longs to. They both know that the circus wouldn’t stand for that.

Phillip pauses just once, just long enough to look back over his shoulder. “Goodbye,” he half whispers, to the dead woman in the grave and to the hate filled man beside it and to the clustered group of family and friends he had once been a part of. Then he turns and strides up the hill towards the troupe, waiting like a silent, stationary army for him to return.


End file.
